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Hello, everyone. Welcome to our um webinar and this is getting started and running interviews and focus groups. Delighted to welcome you on behalf of the incubator for Clinical Education Research. My name is Lily Lam. I'm a GP and an I HR doctoral fellow based at the University of Newcastle. Um and delighted to welcome Joan along today who's going to be speaking to us. Um Just a couple of housekeeping things first. Um We are in a webinar format, so at the moment you can't um communicate with us, but when it gets to the discussion sections, we will um change the settings to invite you to the stage, so you should be able to speak hopefully all being well. Um And this is a series of, of webinars which we're delivering over the next few months, all aimed at people who are getting started in their career in clinical education research. If you're interested in finding out more about the future sessions, please do stay till the end when we'll share um a couple of slides with some QR codes where you can sign up. Um But otherwise delighted to welcome you all today and I'll hand over to do to introduce herself. Thank you. Thank you very much, Lili. Hello, everybody. I'm doing all. I'm a GP and a clinical lecturer in New Castle University. I'm delighted to share um my lessons, the lessons I've learned from conducting interviews and focus groups with you today. And I will start by doing a poll to check um your experiences with running focus groups and interviews. So if you could um answer the question on the poll and then, OK, once you're doing that, I will share my own experiences. So I had um my introduction to focus groups and interviews was doing my medical doctorate degree where I did a project on patients involvement in medical education. So I did um I conducted focus groups with patients to find out their views and I conducted focus groups and interviews with students as well and I found it very, you know, interesting and, and enlightening as well. So we've got here. Um Many people have, most of people about uh almost half of us have no experience but are planning a project in focus groups and interviews. And that's great to help you with that focus group and interview that you're doing to be able to get the best out of it. So, so I'll share my screen now and I can see here that some people have no experience yet and some have conducted a few. So I'll share my screen. Uh There we go. And oh, II can't see the, um, if you press that one of you, um, if you press the, uh, share a PDF, maybe, um, if you make it into a PDF, that might be easier. Ok, I'll try that now, sha you there, upload and PDF format. No. Uh, ok. Right. I'm going to get started whilst trying with the computer. So, um, focus groups still is still not. Uh, so, and I'll have a go at do you want, I'll, I'll try and change it if you. All right, then. Thank you. Thank you very much, right? So, focus groups and interviews are basically methods for collecting qualitative data. We're interested here in people's experiences and their ideas about your research, topic of interest. So whilst um interviews is a 1 to 1 interaction between yourself and that researcher and the participants. So you have one researcher and one participant in focus groups, you have one researcher and a number of participants. So usually we'll say about 6 to 12 participants so that you can hear everybody's views and you have a mixture. So in focus groups, so the the skills for focus groups and interviews are similar, except that in focus groups, you want to also, you're also interested in that interruption between the participants because that gives you a richer understanding of the subject in question. So in this webinar, I'm going to talk about the skills for focus groups and interviews generally. Well, then I will pick out the differences with the um focus groups where you know, where, where we need extra considerations for that. So in terms of the steps for conducting focus groups and interviews, we've got three steps, three main steps. You want to have a good and solid preparation, you want to um then conduct a fo focus group for interview and then reflect on, on it. Now, in terms of the preparation is about thinking about who do you want to be there? So it's it, it it has to be based on your research questions. So depending on the research questions, you want to think about who are the participants you want to speak about? Is it people with the experience of that particular thing? So for instance, my project was on patient involvement in medical education. So in the preparation, I wanted to speak about patients that had experiences with medical students as well as no experience at all to see what they feel about it and what the barriers to engaging with medical students are. So you want to think about that, but also you want to think about other characteristics of your participants. Do you want a particular age bracket? Do you want a particular social class or a particular, you know, people in a particular um role and then that will then to your participants and how you recruit them. And the other thing to think about is the venue. Oh, thank you. You've done that. For me. So we are on slide the next slide, please. Thank you. We want to think about. Thank you so much, Lili. No, just me. Thank you. That's it. Thanks Lili. The venue. You want to pick a venue that is going to be neutral, that preferably if it is a venue that is already um that your participants already conversant with, then they are likely to feel relaxed in such a venue. Um Also somewhere that is accessible, easy to reach in terms of transportation, parking, you know, um bus or train routes that, that, that they can easily find and also about accessibility to people for people with special needs. So, is it gonna be um disabilities? You don't want places that are going to be hard for people that need wheelchair? You just want to make sure you don't want your um research to um discriminate or to um restrict other people from attending. Now, the third thing that you want is the materials. Now, we have the focus group schedule which we'll talk about or the interview schedule, which we will talk about later, but also materials like pen and paper, you might want to use some post it notes as well to encourage people to um judge their, their thoughts because some people might not feel very easy with talking or you know, and articulating their thoughts. You might want to get some flip chats as well for drawing because those diagrams can, can help with um fostering discussions amongst the groups, you know, whatever it is you want to do, you, you, you get those things ready and it helps to make it more um interactive as well. Now we go to the focus group schedule, which is the next slide. Thank you, Lili. Right. So the focus group schedule or the interview schedule, I've used discussion schedule here. So that will cover both focus groups. And it's basically you writing down what you want to get out of that focus group and how you structure the focus group so that you can um address your research topic or research questions from there. Again, it's divided into three parts. You might find out that I really like three here today. So again, your schedule is divided into three parts. We've got the welcome and introductions. That's the initial part of the schedule and then we've got the body and then we've got the closing. So for the welcome and introduction, it's basically you introducing yourself, introducing that research that you or topic that you want to talk about here. And the aim of the program, you want to also take informed consent even though they might have sent you this by, you know, email or, or they might have written it out, you want to check again that they are happy to be there and to, to be recorded. And then if it is a focus group, it's useful to ask participants to introduce themselves because that helps to establish rapport. And like we said before, we want that interaction between participants. So if they know each other's names, it's easier for them to speak with each other sometimes as well. It might be if the group don't know one another, it might be useful here to actually have something that's like an icebreaker, something like talking about something, topical. You know, if it is about football matches or the Olympics or something, or even the weather, if you have nothing to talk about there or, you know, examinations or whatever has been ha happening recently, just makes people open up that feeling comfortable to speak. Now we move to the body, which is the next slide. So the main part of the um focus groups or, or or your discussion here is those things that are going to answer your research questions. So this is going to be divided into two main parts here. So we've got the initial questions and then we've got the key questions themselves that address your research questions. So the initial questions are something that brought that help to stop people with speaking about a topic itself. So you want it to be something really, really broad, but also facts. Like when I say fact, I don't mean like written in stone, but something that's easy for people to talk about. So for instance, you can ask people about their role, you know, what is your clinical role or what is your role in if it's dementia or if it's diabetes, what is your role in managing diabetes or what experience do you have with XYZ? So I asked about, has there been any, has there ever been a medical student present in your consultation? And then when they said yes or no, then it's more about, tell me more about that. So they feel easy talking about it because there's no right or wrong. It's what you remember about what has happened before. And also here is where you want to ask a question that helps to establish the participants on the understanding of the topic. Sometimes it's, it's interesting where you, as a researcher are thinking about the topic, you know, you, you might be thinking about severe mental illness for instance, and you as a researcher are thinking about things like schizophrenia or um you know, or paranoid disorders and stuff like that. But the researchers may be thinking about it in terms of simple or general anxiety and depression. So here you want to ask a question about what does severe mental illness mean to you and then that can help you to clarify what the topic of interest is. It is important here because if you don't clarify that topic of interest, people can keep going back to what they were thinking about. And then you just have crossed wires during the discussions c after the initial questions, we then have the key questions, which are the ones to answer your research question. And here you want to think about how you will structure these questions because that structure helps you to enable flow. But it also keeps you on track. So if you get stuck during that discussion, you can actually just go back and say, OK, this is it. So in terms of this structure, you could structure it in a chrono chronological manner in terms of before, during and after or middle and end. Um For instance, for my project on patient involvement, I could have chosen to structure it in terms of how patients were invited to take part in medical students training, what happened during the interaction and how the patients feel after the interaction or what happened after and what? But things could have been better or would they want to get involved later on in in medical students the other way to start or another way there are many different ways but another way to structure it is to use things. So I chose to use things because that would just help me, you know, that that means that I remember all the main event. So by various by things that patients knowledge about medical education, what their rules are or what they feel their rules and what roles they played before, what students rules are, what the barriers and enable us to patients involvement are, what support we can give patients to actively involve in medical students training and issues related to consent. So it's just basically you want to think about, you know, your research questions, what are the different areas you want to cover and writing them down to help you? Remember when you're having those discussions and then the closing is basically you making sure that you understand what they intended to say to you. So you want to summarize what they've said to you and reflect back on that and check if that relate that is that is representative of their views. But also it is an important part because sometimes you might have thought, ok, you've covered everything, but there's something very important that they feel needs addressing or something about the experience that you've never ever thought about at all. So it's useful at that stage to ask the patient or to ask the participants, what, what is there anything I've missed? Is there anything interesting about involvement in medical education that I haven't really spoken about here? And it was interesting in my own experience that at the end patients then come up with something really new that I didn't think about that. Ok. Actually, that was it actually interesting. I will, I'll add that to um you know what I'll review in the next focus groups and then um can we go to that slide? They get? Thank you. So part of the closing, give me a minute. Don't worry, you are not missing anything because II II, remember what, um, what's on the slide. So, um, Lili, it's ok if the slides are misbehaving, I think, I don't mind. People see my face just flicking from the start to the end. A if you can support that, do you think? Uh Yeah, Lily, can you share the original presentation by any chance? Um, instead of, uh, sharing and don't worry until, until things are ok, instead of sharing PDF, you might just be able to, don't worry, worry about the next part was supposed to be like, don't, don't worry about it when we come after the large group share again. So don't worry back to the closing of the focus groups or interviews. The other thing that is important to talk about here is reimbursement. So if you have plans to travel arrangement or to reimburse them for the time, arrange that then because you don't want to delay things, you know, to be not know what to expect next to just do that at that time. And if you have any plans to feed back to them about outcome of your not, you know, you can let them know what to expect literally. So you want them to go, you know, knowing what to expect next. So, you know, for instance, I'm going to analyze this and then I'll get back to you in an email or send in a poster or send in a summary or if you want to do participant check in as well. It's useful to let them know as well that I would like you to go through these, those things just to see if it corresponds with your views. So that is, those are the three main parts of running focus groups or interviews. And I thought it might be useful at this point for you to have, ask, ask questions, Lily. Do you want to add anything to in terms of um um preparation? Do you want to add anything that, that you found useful? So, the only thing I was thinking of was um just having an idea for an icebreaker question. So um sometimes people are a bit nervous, aren't they coming into interviews? So, so having in mind if, if things feel a bit difficult, something that you can ask, that's um not related to the research but will just help kind of establish rapport. Um But other, other than that, I think you've covered everything I had in mind. Shall I try and reha this so that you for the small group discussion? Um Let's see if it works. Can you see that that was it the point for the? Yes. Yes. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Uh One other thing I was going to I II missed out to say it, think about your recording device and your many backups because it is very important. Of course, yes, to get that data and you want to record that in some, in a on a device that you can trust that is going to be there as well. So I plan small group, you might prefer to do this in a large group about um you know, if you have, do you have any questions? Are there any questions so far? So I'm I'm just inviting people to the stage which will give them opportunity to speak. But no, there are no questions so far. Um So um once you're on the stage, I'm not sure. Um a will we see people raising their hands or how will we know they want to speak? Um If people type in the chat, if they would like to be invited to the stage or if they have any questions, please use the chat function. Lovely. Thank you. I want this to be a more useful for you and I, I've prepared things to talk about, but actually this is meant for you. So if there are any aspects of running focus groups, especially as most of you are planning to um have your focus groups and interviews. So if you have any concerns about those focus groups and interviews or anything that you are not quite I sure about. And if you write that in the chart, always up your hand and speak now, then we otherwise I'll crack on, I'm not seeing anything. Um Oh, sorry. Yeah, David Arthur Jefferson has a question. So let me just find you and invite you to the stage. David. Sorry about this. Let right, David. Hopefully you should be able to access the stage and ask your question if not. Oh, are you joining? I can see something flicker there if you don't pop up and Oh, there we go. Yes. Go for it. David. No, no, thank you. Yeah. Thank you. I was really interested in that and I'm about to do a pilot study for a doctoral research. I'm doing at Kiel University where I work and focus groups will be part of it. What I was gonna ask is when you're running a focus group and you have your list of kind of questions that you want to ask. Do you rigidly stick to those or do you just let it flow? Do you let it let it unfold if those topics are being covered? Thank you. So, um and somebody is asking about it because of focus groups as well. So you, you want a mix, you want somewhere in the middle, the suites, medium of both of them. So literally, you are a researcher, you had your questions in mind, but actually the participants have the experience of that phenomenon or that topic you want to study and there are some things that they are going to say that's so important to help you understand it that you didn't think about. So your focus group schedule is only a guide to help, you know that these are the things you want to cover. But actually the discussion in itself, you want to be led, you want to be guided by the participants responses of what they, what they feel is important and what they think about. So for instance, I had those five things that written there. But when I was talking about the, when, when I was thinking about it, there was so much interest about consent that I had to actually to talk a lot about consent and you know, explore more and more about content and then the roles that II felt that, oh, that's really important. They didn't have much to say about the rule and that's fine. Maybe because they haven't thought about it at this point in time. Yeah, but that's not as important to them at this point in time. So you let it flow according to what responses they give and what? Yeah, what surprises. Yeah. Um You from there um answer your question. It does. Yeah, because II guess no, no, I was just gonna say, yeah, cos one of my concerns was I'm doing it with um part of the part the participants will have the criteria is that they have AD HD or dyslexia. And I was thinking about the practicalities of kind of letting a discussion flow with people with AD HD. Cos you, you might get, you might have to rein in somewhat. So it was just kind of, I was after that confirmation almost of just that balancing act of it being led, but also structured. It's like halfway house, I guess, isn't it? Yes, sir. Thank you. Yes, exactly. I was gonna say that you're welcome. I was gonna say as well that I found that those are my six themes there. I found them useful because your topic. So, you know, it's obvious that this doesn't have to do because there was so much about NHS and waiting on things and all that. Like, ok, that's not my topic, you know, it's related, but that's not my topic. Then you have the kids to look at and it's ok. Actually, can we go back to students to talk about that? So, I, mm, I find it useful to just come back when there's so much silence that, you know. Yeah, that topic they were talking about has come to a conclusion or they've read off from the topic so much them back. And that's ok. Our next topic is this. Yes. Yeah. No, that's great. Thank you. So, there, there are some more questions in the chat there, um, which we could, we don't have to necessarily invite people to the stage. I mean, there's the one about, um, closing the focus group session just with the debrief. And also are there any additional considerations you might be able to share for conducting interviews or focus groups when a caregiver is speaking on behalf of an individual? Thank you. And then there's a third one about best practice regards to covering expenses or providing incentives to participants. Ok, I will start with the first two. So in terms of um let's go about the considerations um about if someone is speaking on behalf of the other person. So for instance, in my pa in my, in my um research, now let's assume I was talking about stu patients getting involved with medical students for actually, this is in the pediatric setting. So I would have been speaking with moms or um guardians or you know, anybody in charge of the, of the pa of these Children instead of speaking to the Children themselves. Now, what is interesting is because you want the children's view because that or sometimes you want it, it depends on your ques, literally all depends on your research questions. So if it is about the children's view, you could invite the Children to come, you know, to, to have their own separate focus groups because they might not want to say things in front of their parents and stuff like that. So you might want to speak to those Children themselves if that's what you're interested in or if you, if you can't, for instance, you are talking about patients living with dementia for instance, and or patients that lack capacity to, you know, to have a focus group or discussion with them and you're speaking to their carers or the, you know, people or the family, then you want to um yy, you know, that you are limited in terms of the views and, and their, and that's part of it with um q qualitative research, you can't get the whole full picture, you know, you are limited and you have to work with what you have physically. But also I was gonna add there that when you are having focus groups or interviews with these groups, you might want to think about um having carer caring arrangements for those people. So if you're talking about mom breastfeeding, for instance, in moms, these moms don't have any, some of them might not have anybody to look after the Children for them. So you might want to either pay them or give, give some money for them to pay someone to look after the Children at that time or you might want to set another room where the Children can be playing with blocks or bricks and everything and somebody keeping an eye on them at that time. Does that answer your question? I think? Yeah, they'll need to put that in the chart um in the chart. OK. Do you want to go to the next? Sorry. Yes. So the next one is about closing focus group sessions. So yes, you could debrief as, as the close of it. You could also. And sometimes you could ask people, sometimes you've asked them to write down some things and you could ask them just, you know, read from there or something. So, I, in the focus group, I did when I was closing the sessions, I kind of debriefed them and say no, this is what it is. Does that relate to what you've, what you've said? And most people usually say yes because they want to be um polite. But then if you ask, is there more things that you want to, is there more things that I did, you know, pick up, they bring up more things actually, you know, taxes it for closing this focus groups. Someone said yes, thank you. Now, best practice for um covering expenses and providing incentives to participate. There is guidance on the NIH R. So NIH R has guidance on, on how to do that. Um Basically, it's good practice to cover for expenses that patients or the participants have had to um pay to attend your focus groups because it shows that you value their reviews. So like we said, if they are carers, you want to cover expenses for that. If they have to travel to come here, then you pay for that as well in terms of their time coming to attending your focus group or attending your interview that you know, it it all varies really. But usually if it's more than an hour, it will be reasonable to have some patient for their time. Less than an hour. It is understandable that that is, you know, you don't have to do that, but they are guidance on in I Lily. Do you want to add to that? II think that's very succinct and nothing to, nothing to add from my perspective. Thank you. We've got OK, please. Can you go to the next slide right before we go into that? Because it's although we've talked about and go off screen so that we don't have to um show people these tips yet. So before running the focus groups and interviews themselves, you've already asked the question. So I've already answered how to run it. It's literally remembering to record. I always say this very much very often. But also when you're asking your questions, you have the, the guide is only a guide. It's not gonna limit, don't let that limit you to the questions you ask any time they give you a response, you want to listen to the response because your next question, that guide, you know this question. So usually when people respond that some people, everybody is different, some people will give you the whole story, you know, how was your day today? And then it's like 10 lines or 10, you know, a whole paragraph of what has happened. And some people would just say it was fine and then you know everybody there. So you if it is the it was fine, kind of people, you don't want to unpack that fine. Like what does fine mean why was it fine? What they did? Fine or sometimes if they say something like, oh, I really enjoyed that experience. 00, you really enjoyed. What did you find interesting in that? So, then that helps you to dig more and get more rich insight into what they are saying. So, that's number one, number two is if they, um, if there's quiet, you know, if people have thought about it so much and there's quiet then you, you can either go back to your crypts sheet to your guide to know the next thing to talk about. Um or sometimes it might be that they just, it is OK sometimes to be quiet because people need some thinking time when it comes to focus groups. The tricking focus group is you don't want it to be receptor participants, one researcher, participant to researcher, participant three, because that then becomes a two interaction. What you actually want is for the researcher to just guide that discussion and to moderate that discussion. But actually it is a discussion between participants, 123456. So that's where the real skill comes in because what you want to do is to actually explore that topic, you want to actually encourage those interactions. So what you could do, for instance is if a participant answers the question to something and that's stressing, you allow them to explore that in more detail and then ask other participants what they feel about it or how their fe how their views compared to where or their experience compared to what the first person has said. So I found that quite useful because that then brings in other people into the discussion and then it's now them discussing and then you can then guide, you know, if they've not really understood the topic or sometimes people go off tangents that if they go on off tangents too much, then you can bring them back. The other thing about and focus groups is the other thing about focus groups is you, everybody is different. Some people are very article say they are confident and all that so they will speak. People are a bit more, they rather, you know, we to be asked before they speak, actually be able to get a view of everybody. So you, you are the moderator, you're actually look, you, you're actually looking around to make sure that those people that are more quiet, you want to encourage them to speak and ways you can do that is by asking them what they feel about what's being said so far. Do they have anything to add to what's being said to be in a way that doesn't make them go, you know, feel uncomfortable because you don't know why they are quiet about it. It might be that there's something sensitive or it might be their own nature and stuff like that. So you want to be invited them to take part in the discussion. So when I had my first focus group and that was the first focus group I've ever had anyway. So that was a little bit. Um It was a, an interesting learning point. Actually, there was a patient that was quiet. She didn't say anything throughout and actually we had, let's say eight people in the, in the room and about six of them were very, you know, they were very articulate, they were fair, I would say. And, but you could see that from their professions, these were patients, ok? You could see that from the professionals, head teachers and um nurses, managers and, and stuff like that. But this other two, you know, there was another one that was speaking anyways, but not that much. But this lady, she was actually the only um non-white British in the room also a woman, ok, we had other men there and she didn't say anything th throughout. But it was interesting because it was one of the participants that brought her in by saying actually, I would like to see what you think about this and then she added her own views and then once they start talking, once they start talking, then it's easier. As soon as they say one thing, then you can expand on those things and they the same. But also the eye contact is useful as well because if there's someone that is taking off the floor a lot, really, you can um you know, let them appreciate what they are saying and acknowledge what they are saying. And then if you turn to the more quiet part of the table, then it encourages those people to talk as a cause I have a question here about the ideal length of the focus groups and you, the person has partly answered the question because it depends on the subject on, you know, the research questions. It depends on what you're talking about. And it also depends on the participants because sometimes you've gone in. So I would say usually about an hour is what many people because attention span anyways is 45 minutes. So if you keep people long after that 45 minutes mark, you, they kind of get tired and then they start saying many other things and you, you don't get a lot out of it. And also if you make it too long, especially with us being, you know, he health and social care, you are taking time out of your normal, either working schedule that is so busy or your personal time. They are so busy. So if you make it long, you say like two hours, you would, you, you will struggle to get participants. So you want to make it about an hour plus or minus maybe 10 minutes, 15 minutes because of that. So one, you get that participants better, you might not get so much more if you make it too long because people will be off topic a lot. And that's the main thing. Um, what was I saying? Ok, about timing, about timing. Sometimes people just die out like, II don't have anything to say. That's all that, that's it. So, you know, it all depends on how the participants feel, how much my first focus group was supposed to be one hour, but it was so interesting. They enjoyed it. So you could see they were having lots of fun about, you know, talking about the experiences with NHS and, you know, advising each other and everything that we actually took close to 1.5 hours. But the important thing is actually because you've invited people and you've told them the time you don't want to stick, you don't want to stay too far off the target because it's not nice as well. You are not value the time if you keep them up because some people might not feel comfortable to go. Even if they have another engagement after the time you've agreed, they might feel uncomfortable to go. So you have to also be aware of sticking close to the time you've told them. Can I ask about? Yes, you can. I'm planning my focus group to be online due to the likely. Yes. And that's a, that's a good idea. So, online focus group, it has become more popular during COVID um 19 pandemic and it's actually very good because it helps you to bring participants from all over the world or any part of the world? I found it quite useful in another focus group. I did because we could get participants from all um parts of the UK. So that's, that's correct. Have you any experience or tips or advice about running them this way? Yes, I have again. Thank you, David. I II. See you. Um you're, you're planning an online focus group. So yes, the um rules or the, the skills for conducting focus groups and, or interviews online or face to face are similar. So it's the, the same, the same things. But in online it's a bit more tricky in the sense that people tend to not gets, they tend not to um speak as much when they are online. Like the interaction is not as nice and um personal when it's online, you know, people that don't know themselves from different parts of the country, they've never seen themselves before. They don't know. But if it is local, like, so my patients focus group I did in the UK. Here they were patients of the same surgery. They had similar experiences. They had a lot in common. It was nice. There, there was a nice rapport between the patients. But when it was in the online focus groups that I did later on, these people are tall of them didn't know themselves at all. So it, it was harder to get interactions going. Now, what do you want to do? You want to put more effort into breaking ice breaking or stop the questions like, you know, so what research? So uh my, my research then was about enabling clinical education research careers in the UK. So we ask questions like, you know, what research are you doing? What's, you know, what role are, what role in research do you have? What do you want to get out of, you know, what do you want to get out of your clinical education career? Things like that in the chart before we started? And what are, and that actually people said are like, oh yes, I'm doing research on pediatric and that's really nice. Oh, I in this country and everything and they actually decided to exchange contact from that focus group. So from there, so you want to put more emphasis on the relationships because that will help to um that will help with rapport and interruptions. But he does well in terms of problems with, you know, everybody is different and, and you take doing it in their times. So some people might have troubles with, they might not be able to, to speak properly and then you have to be adaptable. So when we have troubles with some people, yes, you can type in the, in the, in the charts as as well. And there was also issues with I'm trying to remember which other issues. Those were the only things that um makes things difficult hoda moderating. I found it harder moderating. The online because those people that talk so much, it's harder to get them to, it was harder to, yeah, it was harder to get them to like say, OK, this is your turn. For instance, if you have three people want to speak at the, at the, at the same time, usually the more quiet people like not, not speak anyways and then the person that is less quiet. So I found it useful telling people to chat because that brings up those other quiet people's perspectives. And then I can say that and say, ok, what do people feel about this and talk about it? And I also found it useful sometimes to um just literally chat with them in the focus group as well and answer questions back and forth. I think I've answered many of the questions here. Oh, there's another one. Thank you. I think I've answered many of the questions here. We moved to the closing and somebody has already asked me about the closing. So we, we, we talked about what to do in the closing. It's basically just, you know, summarizing another thing about the online focus groups was it was useful to have breakout rooms. So we had the whole maybe 50 participants, but we, we then divided them into breakout rooms based on their professions. And that the decision to break them down based on the professional is because they have common interests and experiences. And then each of the breakout rooms was um facilitated by one researcher. And then everybody came back again and then we did that re reflections and closing in the big room. And that means that if we could, uh you know, share ideas from each other and we asked people to, you know, ask questions there as well, you know, about what, what's the next step and things like that. So that is everything so far. Now, I'll share my 10, my, my tips is it, was it lio? Yes, thank you. So, so far, the, so the tips for this is not, you'll be happy. This is not three, this is seven tips this time around. So the tips for um running interviews and focus groups, you want to prepare a schedule because this helps you to structure your focus groups or interviews properly and helps you to cover the topics you needed to cover at the beginning, but it's only a guide and that's the next one. Use this as a guide, not a checklist of questions to be asked. Um And then the third one is to prepare to be prepared to be taken along different paths from what you planned. And that's what makes the data interesting. The next one is to guide the discussion that it's, it remains relevant to the topic, but you don't want to always be bringing people back because you keep bringing people back. You make them feel less relaxed and feel like, oh, actually maybe I'm saying the wrong thing, I'm not going to speak anymore. So you want to have a balance between allowing people to be off topic and bringing them back to the topic. And then you, I learned from reading different, you know, focus groups and interviews about different methods. You know, you could kind of literally learn other skills and methods that people have used to run their focus groups and interviews. You can do that by reading other and published studies. But also I have a reference at the end of this presentation that about, you know, running focus groups, I need to and then think of it as a about it. We actually do this every day. We chat with our friends, we chat with our partners at home, we chat with our Children. So the only difference with the focus groups and interviews is we are chatting with people we don't know, but also we are chatting with people for a particular purpose. So those are the only two things. So we already have the skills because we know how to speak and we know how to ask questions and you know, explore topics more to release people who don't. No. And actually we can't just be having a chat like that. We're having a chat about a particular topic and we need to answer some questions and to um review the complexity of that topic that you find that you're researching about. And the last and most important one here is, don't be scared about it. I wanted to use just do it or I can't say just do it because you can't just do it. You have to prepare so do it. Don't worry about it's going to go right. Reflect on it and the reflection. Yes. So the reflection is important because when you finish your focus groups and interviews, there will be things that you feel, ok. this worked well and I'm going to keep this one next time. But actually, there will be things that you think. Oh, actually, maybe if I had done it this way to have worked better, so that reflection is useful to improve your skills. But also because this is qualitative studies and we know that what people feel about topics and what they say about topics can be influenced by, can be influenced by recent events. It can be influenced by, you know, COVID-19. If, if you are in interviewing students and they've just finished an exam, it might have a difference with what they feel about, you know, learning with sim learning with patients or learning with simulators because they, you know, they'll be like, well, we did it and I didn't do really well in this exam. So I don't think it's a good thing. So you want to reflect about key things about that your focus group interview that might have affected the data. So you know, how was it that they you know, were there adverse we weather conditions? Was there anything that means that you had to rush the topic or talk really quickly? Or were there things that meant meant that the participants were feeling really positive about the events? You want to write that down because that will influence your analysis as well. And then the third thing is to just improve. So you keep learning you, the more you do, the more you get better at it. Thank you. Thank you. So any questions? Thank you do. Um So I can't see any other questions that you haven't. You've done a brilliant job of answering everything as we've gone. Um If anyone has any further questions, do pop them in the chat. Um What I'll do is, so that's your recommended reading there. And then we've got this list of other events in the series and you can scan the QR codes. We've got getting started and qualitative analysis and quantitative research and medical education and tackling the practicalities of research. So, funding and ethics, etcetera. Um I can't see any questions. So thank you. Thank you. No more questions here. Yeah. Any final questions. Do you remember to please fill in your um feedback form and claim your attendance certificate? Um It doesn't look like anyone else is popping anything there in the chat. And, and my question for you di had been about um how to manage the quieter person in the focus group which you answered very eloquently. So I feel much more confident in going into my future focus group. So thank you. Should we, should we leave it there if there are no further questions? Yes, we can have an early finish. It's extra time for you to have some lunch if it was during your lunch break or extra time to, for you to, you know, whatever research you're doing to crack on with it. So um participation is quite useful to um have people's, you know, experiences and questions about it. It is quite useful. So I II found it in. Thank you, do and thank you everyone for joining us today. Take care. Bye-bye.