ABSTRACT
Focus groups were first mentioned in the literature prior to World War II, and later disseminated by Robert K. Merton in 1956 as an alternative to individual interviews. During World War II focus groups were used to determine the impact of propaganda films on civilians in the US. Merton was a researcher using this new technique (that he called the “focused interview”) to explore sensitive topics and affective responses to the topics within the military (Merton, Fiske, & Kendall, 1990). Merton found that participants opened up within a safe, group environment with others who experienced the same film, radio broadcast, or whatever. The basis of the usefulness of such interviews was the social interaction around a topic to elicit understanding of the group’s responses to similar experiences.
