Conducting My First Ever Solo Focus Group

March 2020. Overnight, a global pandemic shut down campuses, closed libraries, and left thousands of students without access to the research resources they depended on. At UC Davis alone, over 30,000 students suddenly found themselves cut off from services that had been available to them in person just days before.

As a Research Support Specialist at the Peter J. Shields Library, I was not only concerned for myself but for every student who would wake up the next morning needing help we could no longer provide in person. Our team served over 1,000 students daily, assisting with everything from VPN troubleshooting to complex research questions and methodology guidance. We served students, faculty, and community members alike, all with different needs, and a pandemic was not going to stop those needs from existing.

The immediate challenge was finding a videoconference platform that could replicate the research desk experience remotely, protect student privacy, and handle the volume of requests we received. The solution needed to allow students to wait in a queue privately, without being visible to others, and support the full range of services we provided.

We divided into working groups. Some focused on student outreach and building a testing pool. Others handled survey design for post-testing feedback. A third group was responsible for compiling input and producing a report. I joined the third group, but what happened next I did not anticipate.

During our planning meetings, I had consistently raised accessibility as a non-negotiable consideration in whatever platform we chose. A senior staff member took note. One day she told me: "I am going to teach you how to conduct a focus group." She had listened, and she had found a productive venue for my concern. She connected me with staff at the Students with Disabilities Center, covered the basics of focus group methodology with me, and sent me off to conduct my first solo session.

Preparing for the Session

Having a personal connection to the disability community gave me a greater sense of empathy going into this focus group. I was aware, however, that my perspective was limited to my own experience and that there is more than one way to need accommodations. That awareness kept me from assuming I already had the answers before the research even began.

I prepared my questions carefully, coordinated with SDC staff, and requested that one of them be present on the call for safety and accountability purposes.

The Session

Eight participants joined. I opened by restating the purpose of the session, the desired outcome, how the information collected would be used, and the confidentiality terms. The session ran slightly over an hour, a deliberate accommodation for participants who needed additional time to formulate and express their thoughts.

The feedback exceeded expectations. It was immediately clear that the disability community at UC Davis had significant concerns about the transition to distance learning and its impact on resource access. When presented with the videoconference platforms under consideration, participants had specific, substantive feedback about each one.

Key Findings

Across the board, four needs emerged as non-negotiable: privacy while waiting in queue, closed captioning, access to transcripts for future reference, and a formal partnership with the SDC to ensure ASL interpretation, Braille, and alternative format media remained available.

With that input combined with feedback from the broader testing pool, the team selected a platform that met most of the must-haves and several of the nice-to-haves identified across all groups.

Impact

The decision to move forward with an accessible, privacy-forward platform meant that students did not lose access to the research team during one of the most academically disruptive periods in recent memory. Students who relied on accessibility features to engage with library services could continue to do so remotely. And as an added outcome, the research desk student workers were able to maintain employment longer than many of their peers in other university departments, who lost their positions almost immediately when the pandemic hit.

What I Learned

Though I was not present for the first round of post-implementation feedback, the focus group itself taught me something I carry into every research session I facilitate: how to manage group dynamics.

In any setting where multiple people are sharing feedback, there will be participants who naturally dominate the conversation and others who hold back. Learning to redirect dominant voices graciously while actively drawing out quieter participants, asking follow-up questions, and creating space for those who needed more time was one of the most practically valuable skills I developed from this experience.

I am grateful to the senior staff member who took my accessibility concerns seriously and channeled them into something productive. She gave me my first real research responsibility, and it pointed me directly toward the work I do today.