title: Using focus groups for continuing veterinary medical education needs assessment and program planning.
abstract: Needs assessments are essential to educational program development. Methods of needs assessment include environmental scans, surveys, and focus groups. Focus groups are valuable and acceptable tools to identify learner needs. The method is a qualitative research technique that is most useful to identify the range of opinions or ideas on a topic. The purposes of this paper are to explore the literature in focus groups for continuing education research, to provide information on the reasons and methods to conduct focus groups, and to present findings of participants' views of the focus group process.
authors.affiliation: School of Veterinary Medicine, University of California, Davis 95616, USA. dmoore@vmtrc.ucdavis.edu
authors.forename: Dale A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Moore
authors.forename: Donald J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Klingborg
authors.forename: James S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Brenner
authors.forename: Adrienne A
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: Gotz
mesh_terms: D004520:Education, Veterinary; D017144:Focus Groups; D006801:Humans; D020380:Needs Assessment; D010934:Planning Techniques; D016730:Program Development