A discussion guide is an outline of topics and questions that outlines the direction of the conversation and minimizes the effort from the moderator to remember all the questions that have to be asked, it also allows you to develop projective techniques to aid your respondent in expressing their feelings.
A discussion guide should roughly contain the following:
- Research objectives: Why are you engaging in this discussion and what do you hope to accomplish?
- Respondent profile: Describes who you will be talking to
- Introduction
- Topics: For a typical session you will want to cover 3 to 5 topics, which you will derive from your research objective. Topics are generally prioritized and thought of as follows:
- Awareness
- Product usage, Buying behavior
- Switching
- General before specific
- Behavioral before attitude
- Positive before negative
- Unaided before aided
- Respondent categories before moderator categories
- Activities
Whether you intend to moderate your own interviews or have a Discuss moderator handle them, a discussion guide is a key element of your consumer conversations! The Discuss moderators are able to provide assistance or craft the discussion guide for a fee in order to guarantee the best outcome for your objectives.