Abstract
The purposes of this study are (a) to establish a measurement for evaluating conversational impressions of group discussions, and (b) to make an exploratory investigation on their interactional processes which may affect to form those impressions. The impression rating and factor analysis undertaken first give us four factors concerning conversational impressions of “focus group interviews (FGIs)”: conversational activeness, conversational sequencing, the attitudes of participants and the relationships of participants. In relation to the factors of conversational activeness and conversational sequencing in particular, the microanalysis of four selected topical scenes from our database further shows that the behavior of the moderator and the interviewees is organized not independently but with reference to each other. The study thus emphasizes the importance of the integration of quantitative and qualitative approaches towards human interactions.
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Notes
One possible measurement of a “good” discussion is to evaluate whether or not the discussion has achieved its purpose. Every group discussion has a goal; for example, collecting as many opinions and ideas as possible from the participants, reaching a consensus about an issue, or finding collaboratively a solution to a social problem. A discussion that has achieved its goal can be regarded as “good”. On the other hand, all types of discussion can also be evaluated equally with reference to whether adequate speaking opportunities are ensured for all participants, whether the ways of achieving the goal are clear and fair, etc. Accordingly, in establishing measurements for group discussion, three parameters should be considered: (a) the agent, (b) the target, and (c) the method of the evaluation. We fixed the parameters so that (a) a non-participating third party evaluates (b) the processes, not the outputs, of the discussion (c) by means of an impression rating. More than one measurement may well be necessary for evaluating a single group discussion in accordance with the variation of the parameters.
Scenes 1 and 2 from session 2 were excluded from the factor analysis, because they were the first stimuli presented in each investigation. Some participants of the preparatory ones reported difficulty in assessing the very first clip they saw without having a point of reference.
Here, we focus on a very limited set of conversational characteristics observed in our data. This does not mean that we excluded all the other interactional features as irrelevant. The question as to what variants are relevant or irrelevant in assessing group discussion is not easily answerable at present, and we believe that the answer can be sought for only through the detailed analyses of natural data. In the present study, we utilize the results of the impression rating and the factor analysis as a reference for identifying and specifying candidate relevant phenomena by means of the interaction analysis.
Some of the interviewees’ utterances are not shown in the schema for the purpose of indicating the simple pattern of the utterance distribution in each case.
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Suzuki, K., Morimoto, I., Mizukami, E. et al. An exploratory study for analyzing interactional processes of group discussion: the case of a focus group interview. AI & Soc 23, 233–249 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-007-0176-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-007-0176-4