Variants of focus groups include:

• Two-way focus group - one focus group watches another focus group and discusses the observed interactions and conclusion

• Dual moderator focus group - one moderator ensures the session progresses smoothly, while another ensures that all the topics are covered

• Dueling moderator focus group (fencing- moderator):-two moderators deliberately take opposite sides on the issue under discussion

• Respondent moderator focus group - one and only one of the respondents are asked to act as the moderator temporarily

• Client participant focus groups - one or more client representatives participate in the discussion, either covertly or overtly

• Mini focus groups - groups are composed of four or five members rather than 6 to 12

• Teleconference focus groups - telephone network is used

• Online focus groups-computers connected via the internet are used

1.2 In-depth interviewing

In-depth interviewing is usually done at the beginning of a major research project, when you will be studying a population that you have never researched before. In-depth interviews - also called "semi-structured interviews", or "informal interviews" - are very different from survey interviews. They are much more similar to journalistic interviews. Some of the differences between survey interviewing and in-depth interviewing are:

• A survey usually has at least 100 interviews, but with informal research, 20 respondents is often enough.

• A survey has a fixed questionnaire. All the respondents are asked the same questions (except those skipped), in the same order.

• But with in-depth interviewing, there are no specific questions. Instead of beginning with "Which of the following statements..." an informal interviewer might say "Can you tell me about a time when you..."

• With in-depth interviewing, there is no specific order. The respondent may jump from one subject to another. The interviewer has a list of things to be discovered, but the wording and sequence of the "questions" depend on the "answers" the respondent gives.

• Instead of using a fully random sample, in-depth interviews are usually done with people who are deliberately chosen to be as different as possible from each other.

The reason for these differences between survey interviewing and in-depth interviewing is that their purposes are different. Unlike survey interviewing, in-depth interviewing does not claim to obtain results that can be generalized to a whole population. You normally use in-depth interviewing for collecting background information, so that when you write a questionnaire, you will be able to use questions and wording that are more relevant to the population being studied.

With a survey interview, as long as the questionnaire is well designed and instructions are clear, interviewers can be relatively unskilled.

With in-depth interviews, there are only three rules:²

1. You need to decide in advance which main topics you want the interview to cover.

2. You need to decide whether everybody will be asked the same questions, or you will change the questions, depending on the respondent.

3. The interview needs to be recorded in some way.

Because there are no fixed rules, there are no standard procedures, so the quality of the interview depends very much on the skill of the interviewer. It's therefore normal to use highly skilled interviewers, who have been working closely with the project leaders, so that the interviewers know the main issues of interest in the study. Often, it is the chief researchers themselves who do the informal interviews, because they have a better knowledge than anybody else of the project's purposes.

If the chief researchers aren't experienced or confident interviewers, trained interviewers can be used, but they should be chosen well in advance, and participate in the development of the research.