Why focus groups and workshops?
Kereru feathers. Image - John Hunt
Our initial focus groups were designed to canvass, through dialogue, the range of views among stakeholders about various aspects of bird monitoring and reporting in New Zealand.
The focus groups were not intended to reveal the extent to which the various views or opinions are held, which would rightly be the purpose of our forthcoming survey of stakeholders.
We plan to run follow-up workshops with the various participating parties to check on and explore the results of the focus groups, and work on acceptable solutions to the various bird monitoring and reporting challenges identified.
Five topic areas of interest
In each group the discussion was organised around five topic areas seen as essential for developing an understanding of the range of stakeholder needs, experiences, and views around bird monitoring. These topics were:
- Values:
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- Experience with and interest in birds and bird monitoring
- Species of most interest
- Motivations for being involved in bird monitoring
- Measures:
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- What people want to know about birds
- What specific metrics/measures are most useful
- Information sources:
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- Sources of information that people use
- Uses of the information
- Trustworthiness of sources
- Access to datasets
- Reporting:
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- Current dissemination of bird monitoring results
- Preferred forms of presentation and communication
- Future engagement in the project.
Our challenge has been to interpret what were told in the groups, and identify common themes and threads among the various participants’ expressed views.