Focus groups are often held for research and analysis purposes. There are many elements that are part of the realization of a focus group and one of those key elements that should not be left aside for the last one is the transcription.
Due to the various parts of creating and managing a focus group, there is great potential for chaos. There are few things more frustrating than completing a productive, data-rich session only to find that the recorded audio is unusable or that the transcript is once again a chaotic and unreadable mess.
Transcription alone can be a difficult business, even with a professional transcription agency. It becomes more difficult when those leading the focus group do not make adequate preparations to ensure the continuity of the recording. With careful planning, those leading the group can facilitate transcription and reduce the overall project cost.
Focus groups add to the overall challenge of transcription due to the variety of voices and potential accents that depend on the nature, location, and cultural diversity of the group. Also, depending on the interaction of the group and the intensity of the discussion, there may be several people talking to each other, making it difficult to identify and differentiate between the people who are speaking and what they have said.
With these variants, it can take significantly longer to tackle the transcription of the focus groups, which can unfortunately add to the cost of the service. However, there are several things that can be done to facilitate the transcription process:
Speak clearly for transcription in a focus group
To begin with, if food or drink is offered, it should be given to the participants before the session begins. Eating or drinking can not only make open discussion a bit awkward for others, it can also be unpleasant and even harder to decipher what people are saying when talking with a mouth full of food or around a drink.
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Second, having a quality recording system can help. A center microphone is a poor choice because those closest to the microphone will dominate those further away. Having individual quality microphones or microphones strategically placed to capture multiple ends of the conversation is vital to accurately capturing all aspects of the group conversation for transcription.
Manage the parts in a focus group
As mentioned, it is difficult to transcribe a conversation when multiple parties are talking to each other. Discerning who is speaking can be difficult for even the most experienced professional transcription service. If you have a way to mark who is speaking at a certain time, this can be helpful. Participants in the focus group should also be advised to avoid talking to each other as much as possible.
To assist in transcription, a focus group coordinator must inform the transcription service specifically what type of information needs to be recorded. For example, a word-for-word transcription that includes all idiosyncratic auditory elements or something more than a “clever word-for-word” that omits stuttering, hesitation, and so on. For market research purposes, this information and these types of auditory cues can be helpful, so it is important to specify what is needed.