For the project, an actress created a patient character, staging a consultation among a group of 36 medical students. The consultation process was monitored by a teacher and was stopped by "timeout" at any critical incidence. Students reflected on possible strategies and, one at a time tried out their own or someone else's proposal. The project…

Caring for patients with dementia is complex and demanding. Since family physicians (FPs) provide much of this care, we examined their practices, learning needs, and barriers to care concerning Alzheimer's disease and other dementias. We surveyed 392 (approximately 50%) Nova Scotia FPs and conducted focus groups and interviews with: FPs; staff of…

This study explores perceptions about intimate relationships including perspectives of pressure and sexual coercion as experienced by unmarried Filipino adolescent males and females aged 15 to 19 years. The study design included an initial qualitative phase containing focus group discussions with adults and adolescents and key informant interviews…

This article discusses the experiences of domestic violence among Ethiopian refugees and immigrants in the United States. A subset (n = 18) of the larger study sample (N = 254) participated in three focus groups with Amharic-speaking survivors of domestic violence who were currently in or had left abusive relationships. The research was conducted…

On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education (1954), recent global immigration to the U.S. interior compels local education systems that are relatively inexperienced with immigration to address new integrating and segmenting tendencies expressed by the growing and diversifying number of immigrants from Africa, Asia, and…

This article evaluates an experimental public housing self-sufficiency program that encourages home ownership among low-income families. A quasi-experimental design, in combination with focus groups, records review, and key informant interviews, provides data to focus on four questions: (a) Do these programs simply accelerate move-outs for those…

This qualitative study represents one of the first efforts to examine how African American fathers protect their children from community violence. Eighteen African American biological and "social" fathers of preschoolers in the Washington, DC, metropolitan area participated in focus groups addressing parenting in violent neighborhoods. Fathers…

The purpose of this study was to explore the response patterns of African American students to the state certification questions. More specifically, the participants' explanations of their responses and their perceptions of the source of knowledge they used to answer the questions were discussed. To achieve this purpose, three research questions…

Twenty-six primary caregivers of children with a disability took part in focus groups or interviews to discuss their perceptions of stress and the coping process. Research was framed within the Process Model of Stress and Coping (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). Findings provided a snapshot of the common stresses encountered by caregivers and indicate…

Focus group research is an effective way for school nurses to gain knowledge about a diverse range of issues that children in schools may face. It is a means to gather information about perceptions, feelings, points of view, and manners of thinking from a group of individuals about a specific topic. This article overviews focus groups as a…

Reflective journals have become an increasingly popular tool used by numerous faculty across many disciplines in higher education. Previous research and narrative reports of journal writing have explored student perceptions of journal writing, but very little is understood about faculty perceptions. In this paper, we report on a study involving…

This paper considers the contemporary use of focus groups as a method of data collection within qualitative research settings. The authors draw upon their own experiences of using focus groups in educational and "community" user-group environments in order to provide an overview of recent issues and debates surrounding the deployment of focus…

Ethnographic research, including interviews, focus groups, and observations were conducted to explore gendered dimensions of smoking among low level smokers, including the acceptability of smoking in different contexts; reasons for smoking; the monitoring of self and friends' smoking; and shared smoking as a means of communicating concern and…

Levels of cultural understanding can be applied to leadership and research. Intracultural understanding is self-contained within one culture. Cross-cultural understanding extends from one culture to another. Intercultural understanding recognizes implications for one's own culture. Metacultural understanding extends beyond one's own and others'…

Purpose: This paper aims to describe the context, process and findings of a qualitative review of Walsall Arts into Health Partnership, which is widely acknowledged to be one of the most progressive community-based arts and health programmes in the UK. Design/methodology/approach: The research adopted a multi-method qualitative approach to…