Transcribing Focus Groups: Best Practices to Keep In Mind

In the field of market research, focus group discussions are one of the commonly used approaches to gain qualitative data. With this method, data is obtained from a selected group of individuals and the facilitator often records the session. That way, transcribing focus groups can be done later on as part of the process.

However, when transcribing a focus group discussion, you can’t just convert the audio to text. You need to keep a few things in mind when having the recordings of your focus group discussion transcribed. Here, we will discuss the best practices researchers need to remember when transcribing focus group discussions.

What are the Best Practices for Transcribing Focus Groups?

Organize Your Audio Files

It may not seem like it but something as simple as organizing your audio files is a best practice for transcribing focus group discussions. When you have multiple audio recordings of the focus group discussion, be sure to organize them in a specific order. You can do this by adding a number to the title (e.g., Audio Recording I), labeling it by the dates the discussions took place, or even by the topic of the discussion.

Regardless of how you label the recordings, properly organizing the audio or video file can be a great help to those who will be transcribing the audio for your team.

Turn to a Reputable Transcription Service

When discussing how to transcribe a focus group, it’s easy to think that you and your team will have to do it on your own. However, it’s never recommended that you transcribe your focus group recordings on your own. Instead, you should turn to a reputable transcription service to get the job done for you and your team.

By turning to a transcription company to transcribe your focus group discussions, your team can have a highly accurate transcription on hand. This ensures that the results of your team’s research have no mistakes, allowing your team to extract focus group data faster and significantly increasing the credibility of your findings.

Additionally, allowing a transcription service to handle the duties of transcribing your audio will enable you to focus more on the other aspects of your research. As a result, your team can avoid missing any deadlines that can hinder the project's progress.

Proofread Your Transcriptions

Another practice you need to keep in mind when transcribing focus groups is proofreading. While it’s best to leave the actual work of transcription in the hands of experts, you should still proofread the documents afterwards. By doing so, you can conduct reliable quality control, ensuring that the transcript perfectly matches the audio you provided. Through this, you and your team can avoid mistakes that could be included in your research’s findings.

Seek Feedback from Colleagues

Finally, when having your focus group discussions transcribed, don’t hesitate to take the time to seek feedback from your colleagues. This can be done by having them review the transcripts of the audio or video recording. That way, any mistakes you might have missed can be spotted and they can comment on the overall accuracy and quality of your transcriptions.

It cannot be denied that transcriptions are a valuable resource for many market researchers. However, researchers should never undertake the task of transcribing focus groups on their own. Instead, you should always turn to the expert transcriptionists of TranscriptionWing to get the job done.

With 25 years of experience, TranscriptionWing are the pros to approach for precise and accurate transcriptions. We offer 100% human transcriptions for a variety of industries such as market research, finance, biotechnology, and legal. In addition, our services are reasonably priced and you have various turnaround time options that can help you meet your deadlines more easily. Learn more about our transcription services and order high-quality focus group transcriptions for your project needs today.