Use of Focus Groups in Research and Evaluation - Focusing on Focus in The Promise and Challenges

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Pentious

The paper examines an evaluation of a New York City afterschool program in public schools, using focus groups to understand both enrolled young people and the staff running the program. It explains how focus groups operate as a research method, why they fit within existing program structures like staff meetings and youth councils, and how participants’ shared experiences are socially produced during discussion. It also reviews practical challenges encountered in conducting these groups and offers suggestions for future afterschool evaluation work.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages10

Reading Time25 min

AccessFree to download

Use of Focus Groups in Research and Evaluation

Focus groups as a research method

Advantages in program evaluation settings

Facilitating discussion and maintaining focus

Focus groups with youth in afterschool evaluation

focusing of Focus in The Promise and Challenges Groups in Afterschool Evaluation by Nicole Schaefer-McDaniel, Kimberly Libman, Sarah Zeller-Berkman, and Kira Krenichyn In these days where “accountability” is the byword, organizations more and more frequently seek to evaluate their programs. They often hire outside evaluators to help them assess the effectiveness of their programs, to find out what works and what doesn’t, and to determine what programmatic changes would be beneficial. ActKnowledge, a New York City action research organization, is one such evaluator. In this paper, we examine an evaluation we conducted of an afterschool program operating in New York City public schools to reflect on the use of focus groups as a means of evaluating afterschool programs. Since the administrative office that hired us to do the evaluation and the directors of the program we evaluated wanted to learn more about the young people enrolled in the program and the staff that runs it, the use of focus groups as a research method seemed a logical choice. The literature on focus groups as a methodology provides a rationale for using this tech- NICOLE SCHAEFER-MCDANIEL is a research associate with ActKnowledge, an action research organization in New York City, and a doctoral candidate in Environmental Psychology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY) . Prior to joining ActKnowledge, she worked at Pathways to Housing, where she conducted an evaluation of a housing-first program for homeless and psychiatrically disabled adults in New York City. KIMBERLY LIBMAN is a research associate with ActKnowledge and a doctoral student in Environmental Psychology at the CUNY Graduate Center. She has worked with young people for nearly a decade in formal and informal educational settings, as well as in her own research. SARAH ZELLER-BERK MAN is a research associate with ActKnowledge and a doctoral candidate at the CUNY Graduate Center in the Social Personality–Psychology department. Her research interests include exploring the impact of incarceration on families and communities. For the past few years, she has been using participatory action research designs, with youth as coresearchers, as a way of investigating social issues and creating social change. KIRA K RENICHY N is director of research at ActKnowledge, where she oversees evaluation research with youth development programs in New York City. She has a doctoral degree in Environmental Psychology from the CUNY Graduate Center. In the past, she has also worked as a counselor in youth programs. nique although it also suggests some of the challenges. To this research, we bring our own experience in evaluating the afterschool program, discuss the challenges we encountered in using focus groups, and conclude with suggestions for future work involving focus groups in afterschool evaluation. While we reflect here from the point of view of evaluators, we hope that this article will be useful to program staff and administrators, as well as fellow program evaluators, so that full and ethical partnerships between the numerous stakeholders involved in evaluation work can be fulfilled. Use of Focus Groups in Research and Evaluation Focus groups have been a popular research method in the social sciences since the 1980s (Asbury, 1995; Bader & Rossi, 2002; Krueger & Casey, 2000; Morgan, 1996; 1997; Smith, 1995) . Focus groups typically consist of a lived experiences. By tapping pre-existing groups such as a group of staff members, focus groups can gather information specific to the workplace. In focus groups, the information shared is produced in the same social context that the evaluation is trying to understand. As group members talk out their agreements and disagreements, researchers can observe and document both what information is shared and how that information is socially constructed. Recently, focus groups have become a popular method in program evaluation

FAQs

Why are organizations increasingly using external evaluators for program evaluation?

Organizations seek to assess program effectiveness, identify what works and what does not, and determine changes that would benefit programs.

What was the focus of the paper’s evaluation of the afterschool program?

The evaluation examined how focus groups could be used to learn more about the young participants and the staff running an afterschool program in New York City public schools.

What advantage do focus groups offer in the context of afterschool programs?

They can be integrated into existing program structures, bringing research into the social and physical setting being understood while supporting group discussion and shared awareness.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Pentious