Dissertation
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Focus group discussionFocus Group Discussion (FGD) is a type of semi-structured interview that has a set topic and is led by a professional moderator (Yulianti & Sulistyawati, 2021). In qualitative research, this kind of conversation is used to make sure that the results match what was agreed upon beforehand or what was meant to be made. FGD is a common way to gather data because it is a good way to get qualitative information. This method is used a lot because it is useful and helps researchers build relationships, trust, and understanding. In the 1950s, focus groups came into use as a new way to do research in the social sciences. The focus group method grew out of the open-ended interview format, which was expanded into group discussions (Hennink et al., 2019). Morgan says that focus groups are "a way to do research where the researcher chooses the topic and the group talks about it" (L. Morgan et al., 2019 ; D. L. Morgan, 1996)). So, researchers use focus groups, which are planned conversations where people share their individual thoughts on a certain topic. A moderator-researcher guides and helps a small group (usually 3–12 people) talk about a topic by asking a set of structured questions that keep the conversation on track. People are chosen to attend based on their unique qualities and how they relate to the session's main goal (so-called purposive sampling). With other people to build on, the information you get in a group setting is richer (Peesker et al., 2019) FGDs with the people being studied are a good way to get qualitative data. Focus groups are helpful because they can get honest and sometimes insightful feedback easily and effectively (Afsharmanesh et al., 2020) Still, it has many of the same problems as other qualitative approaches. The way the group works and how big the sample is could change the results. Because of this, it may be hard to extrapolate the results (Zanette et al., 2019). Focus groups are especially vulnerable to delivering unreliable results if they are not properly facilitated. The method is used in many fields, such as engineering products, engineering education, product development, business service definition, and testing the usability of computerised systems (Faujdar et al., 2021;Yonathan et al., 2021;Suherman et al., 2021 ;Han et al., 2019) Focus groups can be used in research in a variety of ways. They can be done on their own or with other methods, like one-on-one interviews or statistical surveys (Huang et al., 2021). The focus group discussion (FDG) was conducted with mechanical engineering lecturers to examine their perceived acceptance and usage of digital technologies for mechanical engineering training. A focus group discussion was chosen over an individual interview since it allowed for free-flowing discussions and exchanges among the lecturers. A further technical consideration was overcoming the unavailability of lecturers (Lobe & Morgan, 2021). Due to tight schedules, it was necessary to overcome the limited availability of lecturers on campus. Therefore, focus groups were more appropriate than individual interviews. I realized that individual viewpoints were occasionally muted in group discussions due to the agreement of the majority (Criss et al., 2021). Individual perspectives served as a supplement to the data in this investigation. Based on the initial classification, focus group talks were arranged. Each group consists of five professors from one of the six technical universities in the study region. Each conversation lasted between 30 and 40 minutes. The language of the focus group discussion was English. It was chosen because lecturers were more proficient in it. Questions related to how lecturers are perceived to accept and use technology for mechanical engineering training to develop the skills needed by the industry were asked. Figure 3.3 Triangulation data collection method Download 2.1 Mb. Share with your friends:
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