Q. Why don’t I just moderate my own groups, or have someone on my staff do it?

A. Since I am admittedly a bit prejudiced on this issue, here is a list from
The Burke Institute’s Moderator Training materials:

Advantages to Moderating Your Own Groups

• Potentially superior product category knowledge
• Superior knowledge of specific product under consideration
• Superior knowledge of project objectives and internal development opportunities that can be helpful in probing
• Lower out-of-pocket costs

Disadvantages to Moderating Your Own Groups

• Loss of objectivity of outside consultant — loss of objectivity apparent in study design, actual moderating and reporting
• Sacrifice higher degree of skill possessed by qualitative experts
• Sacrifice superior knowledge of category that a consultant might have
• Extreme time consumption of in-house person

And one more from Jackie:

The in-house person who moderates is often “held responsible” for what happens in the groups. If the product/ad/concept tanks in the Focus Groups, this may be seen as the in-house moderator’s “fault” — and an in-house moderator has to continue to work there every day!

Do you have a comment or research-related question? Send it to me for future FAQs!