Research Centre for Better Living

Friendship in Focus: A Resource for Learning, Teaching and Research

This open-access resource brings focus group research to life through three video-recorded online discussions about friendship. Developed alongside a new textbook chapter, it provides students, teachers and researchers with authentic data and practical guidance for designing, conducting and analysing focus groups.

A woman sat at a computer monitor having an online meeting, with nine faces visible on the screen.

Hosted by Sage, the open-access dataset comprises three online focus groups on friendship and includes video recordings, audio recordings and written transcripts. The resource enables users to explore every stage of the research process, from data collection through to qualitative analysis.

This project is the result of a collaboration between Dr Craig Owen and Dr Emily McKendrick at ARU, and Dr Christine Campbell at St Mary's University. Together, they developed the dataset and the accompanying chapter, 'The Focus Group in Qualitative Research', published in the third edition of Doing Qualitative Research in Psychology.

Owen, C., Campbell, C. and McKendrick, E. (2026) 'The Focus Group in Qualitative Research'. In: Sullivan, C. and Riley, S. (Eds.) (2026) Doing Qualitative Research in Psychology: A Practical Guide. 3rd edn. London: Sage. Publication date: 31 October 2026, with accompanying dataset on Sage Research Methods.

ARU team