Focus groups are rich sources of information for qualitative researchers using the phenomenology approach. The differences between focus groups and individual interviews are in their participant composition and setting. In a focus group, the researcher seeks people with a common knowledge of the research problem and study purpose ( Onwuegbuzie et al., 2009) . The people, often more than two, sit in a largely spaced, comfortable room and talk about their experience concerning a commonly understood phenomenon ( Saldaña, 2016) . In a typical focus group setting, the researcher moderates the discussion session to prevent information provision dominance by one member ( Rubin & Rubin, 2012) . Focus groups allow people to share confidential data in a safe space, especially encouraged by the presence of other participants. In contrast, the researcher using the individual interview approach would move from location to location seeking individualized responses concerning a phenomenon. Further, the sole interviewee is allowed to dominate the interview for data saturation achievement and a moderator is an unnecessary participant for the same ( Ravitch & Carl, 2021) . Moreover, in individualized interviews, the space context of the interviewee is unimportant; the interview can also be conducted in small, enclosed, safe spaces.
I would not use a focus group for my study for several reasons. First, focus groups require excessive time and energy in moving from location to location seeking respondents with a common experience concerning a study phenomenon. Considering my study is about the lived experiences of doctors who have handled drug abuse relapsed patients post treatment, it would be laborious to find physicians of the same field and with my expected experience length. Focus groups also posit the problem of conversation domination by one participant, which would limit my data saturation achievement. For instance, if I have allocated 45 minutes to conduct the focus group comprising 8 participants and two physicians provide data for 30 minutes, I will be forced to end the session with limited data from the remaining 6 participants. I prefer individual interviews because they give the respondent ample time to share their experiences on handling drug abuse patients without fear of limited time and conversation dominance. Moreover, focus groups can be detrimental where a shy individual refuses to provide information for fear of everyone else ( Ravitch & Carl, 2021) . However, the shy respondent will be more confident to share information if they are not surrounded by a group of people. Therefore, I would not use focus groups for my study for explained reasons.
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References
Onwuegbuzie, A. J., Dickinson, W. B., Leech, N. L., & Zoran, A. G. (2009). A qualitative framework for collecting and analyzing data in focus group research. International Journal of Qualitative Methods , 8 (3), 1-21. https://doi.org/10.1177/160940690900800301
Ravitch, S. M., & Carl, N. M. (2021). Qualitative research: Bridging the conceptual, theoretical, and methodological (2nd ed.) Sage Publications
Rubin, H. J., & Rubin, I. S. (2012). Qualitative interviewing: The art of hearing data (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications
Saldaña, J. (2016). The coding manual for qualitative researchers (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications
