Lessons on Focus Group Methodology from a Science Television News Project

While many bemoan the fact that television is a central source of science information for much of the United States, professionals charged with informal science education tasks have welcomed opportunities afforded by the medium. Creating TV programming that meets both institutional goals and audience preferences, though, is a challenge fraught with difficulties. To develop such programming, one tempting formative research option is to conduct focus groups with potential audience members. In this article, we present guidelines for focus group implementation as well as crucial caveats to which we should adhere in interpreting data from such efforts. To illustrate the guidelines, we discuss a formative evaluation undertaken for the Discoveries and breakthroughs inside science television news project to understand how some people respond to science news stories.