Methods: Qualitative Focus Groups

I conducted focus groups in order to play out a hypothetical water contamination in a previously unaffected community. The purpose of this was to compare the results of this hypothetical situation with the results of the ES 126 study in Pascoag as well as to identify new areas of concern.

Focus groups are a common means for gathering qualitative data. A focus group is a guided group discussion session, of 5 to 10 people, led by a moderator who has prepared questions and probes in advance. Though there are multiple respondents in a focus group, the group is more than just an interview with multiple people; the interactions between the participants are also important contributions to the overall findings (26).

Two focus groups were conducted in a community that has had no previous experience with water contamination issues. This community, the Pawtuxet village, which is a part of the larger town of Cranston, was chosen for several reasons. First, it is a community which is part of a municipal water system that has not had system-wide contamination issues. Second, is provides a good example of a typical, Rhode Island community with its own special issues and needs. There is no one "typical" community, of course, and the Pawtuxet village cannot stand for the whole of the state, but its members can raise representative concerns. Third, an intact community involvement structure exists in the village, which provided the needed access to community members. Participants were recruited through their involvement in a community organization, as well as through “snowballing,” where early respondents were asked to provide names of other community members who might be interested in participating.

The moderator’s guide, used in both groups, helped to guide the conversation. This moderator’s guide, after introductory and background questions, set up a hypothetical water contamination situation for residents. Though the use of a hypothetical situation, rather than an actual event, may be see to question the validity of the responses, all participants at some point in the discussion mentioned a previous experience with a form of water contamination, though all were of varying severities. These experiences were able to inform their responses, so the hypothetical wasn’t completely unfamiliar.

Some topics discussed in the focus groups:

• what sorts of information did participants want in the case of a water contamination event
• where would participants go to get this information
• how would participants respond to the information communicated to residents of Pascoag during the water contamination there in 2001
• what sorts of action would participants take based on these communications
• what recommendations would participants give to agency members and regulators on how to communicate with community members

In the hypothetical situation established, participants were given varying pieces of information and asked to respond based on the reactions this communication would inspire. All communication forms and pieces of information were verbatim (or almost verbatim, where necessary) repeats of information or communications given to Pascoag residents during the MTBE contamination of 2001 [link]. Forms of communciation included an announcement on the news, a flyer mailed to homes, a newspaper story, and a dialogue from a public meeting. The passages were read aloud by the moderator, and discussion followed. Participants were not informed in advance that the communications being used were actual communications from the Pascoag event. Sessions were then transcribed and analyzed.

Examples of focus groups:

• a toy manu-facturer gathers children together to play with new toys to see which will sell best
• the designer of an adult community education program gets a group together to see what different classes would be desired by the community
• campaign managers working on an election organize focus groups to test different messages and slogans for their candidates