#10344
Focus Groups or Individual Interviews? A Comparison of Text Evaluation Approaches 
By providing an empirical comparison of two evaluation approaches, this article aims to make it easier to choose between focus groups and individual interviews as a way of evaluating documents, and thereby to contribute to a methodology of text evaluation. The article first presents the relevant literature and then moves on to present the results of the authors' experiment. The authors find that focus groups tended to identify acceptance problems, while individual interview participants focused on comprehension.
de Jong, Menno D.T. and Peter Jan Schellens. Technical Communication Online (1998). Articles>Interviewing>Methods
#29059
What is the influence of demographic variables such as gender and educational level on the reader feedback collected under the plus-minus method? To answer this question, an analysis was made of the problems detected in four public information brochures. The average amount of feedback per participant did not vary among the four brochures, but the severity of the problems did. Male participants mentioned more problems than female participants, but the problems detected by female participants were on average more severe. Highly educated participants detected more problems than participants with a lower level of education. No differences in problem types mentioned were found between male and female participants, and only one difference was found between the two educational levels: Highly educated participants focused more strongly on the structuring of information. In general, brochure characteristics had more effect on the types of feedback collected than the two demographic participant characteristics.
de Jong, Menno D.T. and Peter Jan Schellens. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2001). Articles>Editing>Assessment>Gender
