Focus groups and critical social IS research: how the choice of method can promote emancipation of respondents and researchers

Abstract

Critical social research in information systems has been gaining prominence for some time and is increasingly viewed as a valid research approach. One problem with the critical tradition is a lack of empirical research. A contributing factor to this gap in the literature is the lack of agreement on what constitutes appropriate methodologies for critical research. The present paper contributes to this debate by exploring the role that focus group research can play in the critical approach. This paper outlines the main characteristics of critical research with an emphasis on its emancipatory faculties. It then reviews the focus group method from the perspective of critical approach and provides a critical account of two research projects that used focus groups as a method of data collection. The paper presents the argument that focus groups, if designed and executed in light of a critical approach, can contribute to the emancipation of researchers and respondents. This argument is built upon the critical theories of the two most influential theorists in critical social information systems research, namely Jürgen Habermas and Michel Foucault. Critically oriented focus groups have the potential to improve communication and move real discourses closer to Habermas's ideal speech situation. At the same time, they can contribute to challenging the prevailing orthodoxy and thereby overcome established regimes of truth in the Foucauldian tradition. The paper ends by developing a set of guiding questions that provide a means for researchers to ensure that the emancipatory potential of focus group research can be achieved.

Keywords:

• critical social research
• focus groups
• research methodology
• information systems

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Bernd Carsten Stahl

About the authors

Bernd Carsten Stahl is Professor of Critical Research in Technology and Director of the Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility at De Montfort University, Leicester, U.K. His interests cover philosophical issues arising from the intersections of business, technology, and information. This includes the ethics of computing and critical approaches to information systems.

Monica Chiarini Tremblay

Monica Chiarini Tremblay is an assistant professor in the Decision Sciences and Information Systems Department in the College of Business Administration at Florida International University in Miami. Her research interests focus on data analytics and business intelligence, data and text mining, data quality, data warehousing, decision support systems and knowledge management, particularly in the context of health care. Specifically, she concentrates on electronic health records, health information exchanges and medical passports. She is an investigator on several large federally funded. Her work has been published in Communications of the AIS, ACM Journal of Data and Information Quality, Information Technology and Management, Decision Support Systems, Journal of Computer Information Systems, and Health Progress.

Cynthia M LeRouge

Cynthia M. LeRouge Ph.D., M.S., C.P.A. is an associate professor at Saint Louis University with appointments in the Department of Health Policy and Management Decision Sciences, and Information Technology Management Department. Her primary research interests relate to health care information systems (telemedicine, consumer health informatics, and public health informatics). She has co-chaired health care mini-tracks for various information systems conferences and served as guest editor for multiple journal special issues on health-care related topics. She has actively worked as an executive officer of the Association of Information Systems Special Interest Group for Healthcare Research. She has held various senior management roles in industry including roles in the software and health-care organizations prior to joining academe and worked with the Centers of Disease Control Public Health Informatics program. She has been recognized with teaching, research, and service awards.