engleski

Using Focus Groups as a Tool in Evaluating New Educational Programs

The strength of qualitative methodology in examining attitudes towards the changes in school curriculum originates from active inclusion of teachers and students in the process of formal external evaluation, which means sharing influence in decision making with all the participants that are potentially affected by the proposed changes. Sociology of education in this respect has produced only a handful of qualitative studies for which each time some specific, and not standardized, criteria for giving recommendations was used. The aim of this paper is to present the method of focus groups as a very effective tool in evaluating educational programs, especially those who serve more specific public needs. Focus groups methodology is briefly described and explained together with its advantages and disadvantages and observed application in the field of education. The comparative analysis of two examples of teacher focus groups used for evaluating two different newly introduced areas of curriculum in Croatian elementary and high schools, as an integral part of more complex evaluation of these programs, is given. Main goal while conducting these focus groups was to gain broader view of teacher’s opinions and experiences about subject matter itself, teaching possibilities and organizational dimensions. New policy making approach in our educational system, i.e. implementing skills and applicable knowledge into curriculum to serve labour market needs, opened the way for new methodologies in gathering data based evidence for decision making process as well.

program evaluation; focus groups; comparative study; education

Distributed paper presented at the European Sociological Association RN20 (Qualitative Methods) Mid-term Conference: Curiosity and Serendipity – A Conference on Qualitative Methods in the Social Sciences, 20–21 September 2012, Lund, Sweden. Book of Abstracts, pp. 46.