Karen O'Reilly

I spent a really lovely few days in Edinburgh recently providing training for The SRA. The courses were Designing Qualitative Research; Qualitative Interviewing; Conducting Focus Groups. All three courses were full up, with waiting lists, and the participants were fantastic – so much expertise and enthusiasm in one room! Some participants attended two or three days so we got to know each other well, and people made new friends. I tried using ‘play dough’ for the first time in the Focus Groups course. I think it went well – we had fun anyway. Participants came up with some interesting interpretations of un/healthy! We also learned that it might be better to get participants to shape their dough in groups rather than on their own, to avoid the pressure to perform, and the silence. It went very quiet while they sculpted seriously.

It is always lovely to have a few days in Edinburgh and meet up with old friends as well.