Making it Happen: Co-developing and facilitating focus groups with public members

27 April 2026 | Jan Speechley (PEDRI Public Partner), Anwar Gariban (PEDRI Public Partner) & Amy Hodgkinson (Learning and Development Lead at PEDRI) 

In our Learning and Development (L&D) Working Group we’ve been exploring data professionals’ public involvement and engagement learning needs. Workstream lead Amy, and public partners Jan and Anwar, reflect on their recent experience facilitating focus groups to inform PEDRI’s new online learning modules. 

Background 

Last year we kicked off our enhancing skills and building knowledge project, thanks to funding from DARE UK with the aim of supporting people using data in research to do effective public involvement and engagement. As part of this, we’re creating CPD-accredited online learning modules, providing practical guidance on applying the PEDRI Good Practice Standards, discussing sensitive topics around data research and statistics, and evaluating impact.  

Involving the public 

The training we are developing is aimed at people who use data for research and public engagement professionals. We need their input to ensure what we produce is useful and not repeating what’s already out there. We put out an expression of interest survey calling for people get involved in focus groups.  

At PEDRI, we also have a Public Advisory Group who are involved across our workstreams. We wanted to ensure their involvement in the development of these modules was effective. It would have been easy to just add “members of the public” as another audience for a focus group. This didn’t feel like an authentic way to use their time and expertise for this work.  

Together with Jan and Anwar, who are involved with the Learning and Development workstream more generally, we decided the best way for them to pro-actively support this work was to co-develop and deliver the focus groups. Their involvement feels like a real strength of this project. 

We worked together to decide the questions we were going to ask in the focus groups and also how they were going to be delivered. Jan and Anwar also co-facilitated the sessions. This approach helped the sessions to reflect both the data professionals and public perspectives in a meaningful way. 

Facilitating these sessions together offered an opportunity to deepen all our understanding of the diverse data research roles and explore how learning needs might differ amongst them. To keep the focus groups effective, we capped each one to 10 people or under. Because we were unable to invite everyone interested, we also added a survey option, so their insights weren’t lost. With almost 100 people expressing their interest to take part in the focus groups, we facilitated four sessions with a total of 22 participants. 

Planning and preparation   

We wanted to make sure our focus groups were a welcoming space with useful discussion. Together we decided on the length and size of the focus groups, the flow and key questions we wanted to ask. Each focus group had a note taker, administration support and two facilitators to support the focus groups.  

To support facilitation, we developed a guide that included role specific instructions, questions and prompts, and a template for note takers. We also created an introduction and close, setting out the purpose for participants and what the next steps would be. 

Before each session, we took ten minutes to prepare together, and once all the focus groups were complete, we met again to debrief and reflect on what we learned from the process. 

What worked well and what we would change 

For the first three sessions, we grouped people by role, and this worked well. People spoke more freely when surrounded by colleagues who understood and could relate to their day-to-day realities.  

Unfortunately, we did experience a high drop-out rate. We had gathered interest over the Christmas period and confirmed attendance in the new year. Holding the focus groups a few days apart. In hindsight it may have been better stagger the focus groups throughout the recruitment period rather than running them all at the end. This probably would have helped us keep more people engaged. We would recommend to others running similar focus groups to give yourselves plenty of time to recruit and deliver the sessions. Although as we all know, time is often a luxury in public involvement and engagement…  

Despite the dropouts, the insights we gathered were rich. People talked openly about their experiences, the barriers they face, and what they’re curious to learn more about public involvement and engagement in data research. This was our first step, and we want to continue this conversation with our audience in the development of the learning modules and beyond. 

“The range of answers and suggestions showed a wide range of perspectives and challenges and a willingness to find solutions which is very positive for me as an advocate and contributor in public involvement and engagement.” – Anwar

What’s next? 

Moving forwards, we will take these findings to the wider Learning and Development Working Group, where we’ll identify together the issues to prioritise addressing in the online learning modules. 

This process has helped inform more than just the modules. It has continued to strengthen our relationship with our Public Advisory Group members and our understanding of the breadth of roles, and their needs, across data research and statistics. Combined, it’s enabling us to start building a long-term, flexible and sustainable learning offer to support good public engagement in data research.

“The focus groups reinforced that there is genuine commitment among data professionals to improve public involvement and engagement practice. The growing recognition that research should be conducted with people and by people—reflecting the principle “nothing about us without us”—was evident throughout the discussions. The insights gained have strengthened the case for developing a tailored learning module that supports staff across a range of roles and experience levels. The willingness to learn, shown consistently across the groups, represents a strong foundation for future development.” – Anwar 

Contact: Amy Hodgkinson at contact@pedri.org.uk  

Making it Happen is our new blog series highlighting the practicalities of delivering public involvement and engagement projects, programmes and activities in data research and statistics from the people doing it. Do you have something you’d like to share as part of the series? Get in touch at contact@pedri.org.uk  

Further reading 

• Examples of existing learning modules: Training Modules – PEAs in Pods & About this Course – Turing Commons 

• Templates/Guidance for running focus groups: A bite size guide to running focus groups for patient and public engagement 

• PEDRI’s Good Practice Standards