Focus group – Digital Youth Work

IO1: Focus group in Reus, Spain

Adrian M — Sat, 23 Nov 2019 14:29:00 +0000

The focus group conducted in Spain took place in November, 2019. After organising an informative session and two focus groups, OpenEurope collected participants’ feedback, and elaborated a summary of the conclusion reached by the facilitators, young people and youth workers.

The methodology followed by the partnership was based on research, national reports, data collection via surveys and the feedback of the focus groups.

Why a focus group?

OpenEurope works on a daily basis with young people, both in local activities and in international activities (such as youth exchanges, youth workers exchanges…). However, in few occasions they have gathered focus groups that were formed by a mix of young people and youth workers willing to work together and as equals towards a same aim. In order to collect qualitative information about digital skills in the framework of youth –young people, youth workers and employers–, a focus group was a very appropriate approach as they put in common their own perspectives, ideas and experiences in the sector.

There was a first informative session organised with all the people that expressed their interest in the topic in OpenEurope’s premises (Raval Sant Pere, núm. 1, entresol, Reus). Participants were contacted via email, Facebook and face-to-face in our regular activities –i.e. weekly informative point in the Youth Centre of “La Palma” in Reus, or the “Volunteer point” in Cambrils.

In this session, OpenEurope presented the results of the survey conducted and the conclusions of the national report. The materials were in Catalan, Spanish and English, but the discussions and presentations were in Catalan and Spanish. It was an open session where the audience could express their opinions on the topic.

There attended mainly young people but there were also some experts on programming and social media marketing. At the end of this session, two focus groups were established: one with 11 participants, who were youth workers and young people plus two facilitators, and the other with 4 young people and one facilitator.

Focus group 1

The two facilitators of this group were members of OpenEurope, indirectly involved in the D@YW project, and the participants were youth leaders of our national groups sent abroad to Eramus+ KA1 projects and a youth worker who collaborates with us from the Youth Department of the Town Hall. In this session there were three activities carried out:

Activity one:

Participants were paired up and they brain-stormed about the concept of digital skills and youth work. On the white board, facilitators wrote down in Catalan: “What is Youth Work” in your opinion?”; “Are young people part of the youth work sector?; “What are digital skills and what are they useful for?”; “Can you list three digital skills you think you lack”?. After ten minutes of pair-discussion, the entire group put the ideas in common and wrote down the main ideas where they all agreed on.

Activity two:

All participants were required to list down in a piece of paper the profile jobs they believed would have more job opportunities in the next five years in Spain and in Norway. Then, they put their answers in common and justified why they had written different jobs for the two countries –taking into account that the example of Norway was chosen because they do not know much about it. Then, the facilitators showed the results from the jobs profiles of the other partners of the consortium and encouraged another debate about the differences between countries and the changes of job profiles in the upcoming years due to digitalisation and technological changes.

Activity three:

SWAT analysis: the facilitators draw on the white board the SWAT analysis chart and the participants started to brainstorm to fill it in under the question “Youth work in Reus from the point of view of digital skills”. Then, in groups of three, from the ideas written down, they had to make two proposals of activities that could be organised at a local level in this sector. They had to draft a proposal including objectives, activities and timeline.

Focus group 2

The second focus group was formed by 4 young people who had participated in one of the Youth Exhanges OpenEurope organised.

Activity one:

The first activity was also a brainstorm about the concept of digital skills and youth work. The questions were the same ones as in the other focus group (“What is Youth Work” in your opinion?”; “Are young people part of the youth work sector?; “What are digital skills and what are they useful for?”; etc.). Then, the facilitator moderated the discussion.

Activity two:

Participants were provided with flyers and brochures with different training offers and activities of the region. They had to analyse them with special attention to training offer for the youth in terms of digital skills. After that, they also had a short discussion about what they thought was lacking and how it could be improved.

Activity three:

As in the first focus group, participants were required to list down in a piece of paper the profile jobs they believed would have more job opportunities in the next five years in Spain and in Norway. Then, they put their answers in common and justified why they had written different jobs for the two countries –taking into account that the example of Norway was chosen because they do not know much about it. The facilitator and the participants compared the results from the jobs profiles of the other partners of the consortium and had a short debate about findings.

The two focus groups were organised successfully. All participants provided very positive feedback on the activities that the facilitators organised and about the topics dealt with.

The main conclusions were that in general, young people were not very aware of the implications of ‘youth work’ and they associated it with ‘social work’ or working with people with special needs and difficult backgrounds. Also, young people are not aware enough of the concept of youth work and about how it can have a very important role in the education and training aspect of a society. Digital skills and competences are something that young people have at a very superficial level, and which does not match with the needs of the jobs profiled.

In the SWAT analysis, the ideas by young people and those of youth workers were very different, especially when it comes to new ideas and initiatives to solve the problems identified. Youth workers emphasised the lack of funding and efforts on behalf of the public administration, while young people were providing new ideas of activities and initiatives that could be organised at a local level to tackle the lack of digital skills

All in all, the focus group were very useful for both the participants and for OpenEurope to have a better understanding of the situation in this field in their local and most close context.

IO1: Focus group in Milan, Italy

Adrian M — Fri, 15 Nov 2019 16:30:00 +0000

In November 2019, a focus group was conducted in Milan, Italy, with the goals of understanding the opinions, beliefs of the participants and investigate their knowledge of the subject of digital skills and competencies. The aim of the focus group activity was to collect additional qualitative data on the theme ‘digital skills and competencies applied to youth work, young people and employers’ in order to complete and enrich the data gathered previously from the desk research, the national report and the survey.

The focus group was structured and organised around 4 types of activities. The majority of the activities were group activities. The 3 steps were used in order to conduct the activity and foster the discussion among participants.

The number of participants for focus group activity in Italy was the following: a total of 9 participants, differently divided in groups and/or sub-groups depending on the activity in question. The composure of the focus group included 2 youth workers, 5 youth persons and 2 persons representative of companies/associations/entities active in the digital environment, i.e. employers.

The activities of the focus group were facilitated by two moderators. The ‘scene’ of the focus groups was a gathering of participants around a table to informally discuss and share ideas and opinions about the topic of the project: the moderators, two employees of the European Digital Learning Network, were responsible for moderating the discussion and leading the activities, animating the debate it through a set of questions after a short introduction and a brief presentation of the project.

Activity One: Presentation of the survey: questionnaire targeting employers and questionnaire targeting youth workers and young people

The research finally started with the question: “what are your thoughts about the survey on digital skills and competencies (Digital Competence Framework targeted to the Digitalised Economy)?” The participants reacted promptly and a fruitful discussion begun. In the group all the participants were interested in the subject of the survey, recognising the importance of digital competencies and skills in the work sphere. In particular, the main observations emerged from the discussion were:

Awareness and satisfaction for the generally high level – competence and advanced- of Italian youngsters for what concerns Digital Content Creation, Evaluation and Editing: the topics and the features are now party of daily experience of each of us, not just in respect to work and professional tasks.
General agreement, independently from the status, that Web Design and Coding&Robotics were the most desired advanced digital competencies and areas of expertise, both for employers, both for youngsters. In particular, the accent was put on the transversal value of Coding because “…is a kind of mentality and approach to thinking, not just an area of expertise”.
The opinions on the methods preferred by interviewed was quite divergent: the youngsters were in favour of a face to face learning and teaching method while the employers were strongly pending towards online courses and trainings; while the results of the survey showed a blended methodology as the favourite one actually.

Activity Two: The list of 10 jobs

In continuity with the introductory questions, which warmed up the atmosphere and engaged the participants referring to the surveys’ results, the moderators led the way to a more focused, precise exchange of views, beliefs and opinions specifically on the 10 jobs list. To facilitate the debate, the group was divided in 3 smaller groups of 3 persons each and asked to comment the list. The main observations about it were:

General perplexity about the profiles of Social Media manager, Digital Media Specialist, Digital Marketing Expert. For youth worker and young people such figures did not appear so much in need of specific qualifications while for employers they were seen as mere Marketer and Communicators.
Cyber security emerged as being a top priority in every field of work – services, ICT, Industry and Commerce- therefore nobody was surprised of finding cyber security expert in the list. The same for Data and Big Data Scientist.
Positions such as Sale Assistant and Online Store Manager were object of debate: what skills in term of digital competencies do these positions “…really require?”

Activity Three: The abilities/capabilities identified through the survey.

The moderator briefly resumed the points discussed along the whole activity and invited the participants, divided always in sub-groups of 3 persons each, to discuss and have their say about the specific competencies resulted from the analysis of the two questionnaires. Some mentioned comments and ideas were the following:

General interest on the Digital/Social Media, in particular on the skills of reaching wider publics and influence the others. The subject is almost ‘native’ to youngsters, so it is not a competency that they felt they should investigate and boost further because: “…it comes naturally; we all are daily users…”
Coding is very important nowadays but the groups agreed that computational thinking learning should start in formal educational paths from elementary school, if not it is difficult to apply it as transversal skill in professional life unless you have had a specific background on IT. STEM careers are not the most popular in Italy regardless of their priority importance.
The competencies linked to Web Design, which resulted in the top desired ranking in the survey, were commented as being expression of the mistrust and frustration of young people towards the job markets’ conditions and situation. Employers in fact stressed the fact that specialised figures are always required but did not understand why there was so much eagerness to learn about how to build a website or a digital platform.

The identification of the most important advanced digital skills/competencies.

The end of the session was animated by a dynamic activity: keeping in mind the considerations of the group about the abilities emerged in the survey, the facilitators asked the participants to create groups according to their preferred advanced digital skill, where preferred meant the one seen and considered the most crucial for the future of the digital economy in Italy. The 9 participants quickly divided in sub-groups, whose structure is described above:

Sub Group Digital/Social Media: 1 person
Sub Group Coding: 6 persons
Sub Group Programming: 2 persons

The four activities during the focus groups conducted among Italian youth workers, young people and employers in the digital environment on the topic of digital competencies and advanced skills in the framework of digitalised economy substantially confirmed the figures emerged from the analysis of the survey – the two questionnaires- previously done and provided new qualitative data for the project’s research.

IO1: Focus group in Nicosia, Cyprus

Adrian M — Sat, 09 Nov 2019 16:30:00 +0000

Between the 5^th-8^th of November 2019, a number of Young People, Youth Workers and Employees were contacted to organise a focus group. Unfortunately, we could not find a common day and hour for everyone so 4 2-hour sessions were organised. The sessions took place at Emphasys Centre, in Nicosia, Cyprus with 2 Employees, 2 Young People and 2 Youth Workers.

The purpose of the focus group was to introduce the Digital@Youthwork project to them (as they are the direct target group of the project), verify/compare the findings of the surveys that were conducted previously, and to present the recommendations from the participants, that will be helpful and constructed for the Digital Framework.

As mentioned previously, as we could not coordinate all participants in one session the main form of the focus group took the form of a discussion. As a starting point an introduction to the project was made and the website was presented. It is worth mentioning that the website received very positive feedback, as one of the proposed topics was website design, which inspired interest to that specific module. This was a good starting point for the conversation as it led to 3 participants discussing Digital Marketing, which they thought was the next step in promoting services etc, that having those skills could be good for their careers.

The discussion easily led to the results of the surveys. We first discussed with the young people website design and Digital marketing as they were the first topics to gain interest and have an impact. How important it would be for someone who might want to start their own business and could probably not be able to afford a professional to do this for them.

They would prefer a combination of face-to-face teaching along with testing and doing their own thing at home. As for the Youth workers, they mentioned that they mainly preferred face-to-face trainings in general as they connect better with the Young people, but some independent time would be a good idea as this is a very visual topic. Employees agreed that both skills are very useful to have as there is a gap in Cyprus, and that companies cannot find a person that can do both very easily.

As for Social Media, young people do find it fascinating but would not want to do a module on it as it is something, they are familiar with. They would rather see how they could advertise via social media. Employees and Youth workers agreed that they weren’t sure if social media would be useful in the working environment, but marketing would be a good area to explore.

In addition to the above, the chapter media design was then discussed and all 3 groups agreed that designing and using graphics is a great tool, but software like Adobe Photoshop is very expensive to purchase and open sources would be great to explore creative outlets. One Young person mentioned that it would be a great blend to learn to design digital media and combine it with website design.

We then later on discussed programming and robotics and showed some facilities at Emphasys as most of the people who attended the focus group, did not have a background in this area. They agreed that this is a very important topic as it is the base for so many industries, as knowing the basics doesn’t not seem enough anymore. We asked all 3 groups to elaborate on this. Employees mentioned that it must be difficult to find programmers/computer science graduates as there are many job advertisements looking for these skills constantly. The young people mentioned that it would be very useful to have as a skill.

After a short break, the job profiles were discussed. Regarding accounting and legal representatives, none of the participants expressed any interest in this, but were not surprised as all companies now have accounting departments and legal representatives as rules and regulations are constantly changing.
Health experts such as doctors and nurses is not a surprise as healthcare will always be needed no matter the economy.
IT specialists again was not a surprise, as all future professions demand IT skills. Computer science related fields are attractive as there is a lot of money to be made – such as developers etc.
Teachers, just like health experts are always needed, especially now as more and more people are coming to Cyprus looking for jobs with their families, so more students are attending the schools, hence the necessity for more teachers.

On a final note, we asked the participants to take into consideration the entire discussion and give us their opinion on the most important skills to have. The first skill mentioned was programming as they believe it is a main skill to have and could be a “window of opportunities” as they mentioned. The next skill mentioned was Digital Media and all categories around this topic, such as Website Design and Digital Marketing.

The questionnaire regarding their feedback was then distributed. The results regarding the location and time set for the interaction was positive as all participants replied YES. When asked if they felt that the overall interaction was educational 85.7% said it was and 14.3% said it was informative. When asked if it was productive everyone replied YES. Regarding their participation, they were asked to mark it on a scale of 1-10.

28.6% replied 7
14.3% replied 8
28.6% replied 9
28.6% replied 10.
On the scale of 1 to 10, regarding the preparation of the facilitators 42.9% replied 9 and 57.1% replied 10.

The participants were than asked to describe their most memorable moments of the session the answers varied. Some commented on the discussion between employees and youth workers on their views of the labour market and listening to the employees on the skills needed. The discussion seemed interesting according to one answer. The hospitality of the hosting organisation and coffee served was another comment received and also the projects’ website was commented.

Lastly, regarding future focus groups for the facilitators, no recommendations were given. The feedback was very positive including comments such as to keep doing what they do, organise more focus groups and one asked to keep their contact details for future reference.

To sum up the focus group sessions, the participants agreed that Programming is probably the most important skill to have, taking into consideration the gap needs in Cyprus. In terms of their personal interests Digital Media design along with Website Design and Digital marketing are topics they are mainly interested in. So, the focus group session compliments mainly with the findings of the surveys conducted already by the consortium.

IO1: Focus group in Lancaster, UK

Adrian M — Sat, 02 Nov 2019 15:31:00 +0000

The Lancaster and Morecambe College conducted their focus group for the Digital @ Youthwork project on the 1st of November, 2019. The experience had two trainers, two youth workers and ten young people.

LMC invited representatives from a local youth organisation to attend this focus group. We asked two of their youth workers to participate and to bring with them a selection of their youth service users to discuss a range of issues relating to digital skills and their future career aspirations. The young people ranged from the age of 17 to 20 and were all attending the youth centre for informal training and activities. They had a diverse range of educational backgrounds including two young people who were planning to attend university in the future, four who were currently studying level 3 qualifications and four who had left formal education at 18yrs old and were currently seeking employment.

This focus group was conducted as an open conversation with the facilitators guiding the discussions and posing specific questions to the group. These questions included some of the questions included in the primary research surveys as well as follow on questions to explore participant’s responses in more detail. Participants were given a selection of handout sheets for them to record their answers and share with the group.

It started with the facilitators explaining the rationale behind the Digital@YouthWork project and the value of the focus group activity. The facilitators then explained the format and ground rules of the focus group to ensure all participants were clear on the format and process. The group then moved onto introductions and icebreakers to make all participants feel comfortable and confident enough to speak to the group.

After the initial introduction were complete the facilitators began the discussion regarding digital skills and competencies. The facilitators worked their way through a selection of pre-prepared questions and asked all participants to provide their responses and record them on the handouts provided. The facilitators guided the discussion through the pre-prepared questions but as the participants were quite engaged the discussions progressed onto other topics relating to digital competencies and education/career opportunities in the local area. The focus group lasted just over 2 hours and all participants contributed to a lively conversation.

The findings of this focus group generally supported the findings from our primary research surveys. We found that the participants have a variety of digital skills but are lacking the more advanced digital skills. Our participants were interested in all of the most demanded digital skills but felt that in their experience Graphic and Media design, Digital Media and Web Design would be the most useful practical competencies they could have.

All participants said that they found it somewhat difficult to access training for advanced digital skills, mainly due to limited opportunities and financial restrictions. They felt that their only opportunities came from going to university to undertake a degree level course.

All participants also felt that a combination of face to face and online training was the best way for them to learn. They felt that the best way to learn is via hands on practical activities so they can learn by doing. Interestingly, all participants felt that more advanced digital skills can seem quite daunting and they feel put off by technical jargon and the costs of the hardware and software required for many of the digital skills we discussed.

This focus group served as an opportunity to expand on the primary research surveys and explore the more qualitative details of participant’s answers. It was a valuable exercise that enabled the facilitators to gain a deeper understanding of the participants understanding and experiences of digital competencies. We will incorporate the findings from this focus group into the next stages of the project. The consortium will be developing learning content for six digital competency modules.