Advancing your Moderating Skills

Boost your existing moderating skills with practical tips, individual feedback and group coaching.

This course is for people who have some experience of moderating (online or face to face) and want to increase their confidence and range of skills.

This course goes beyond the basics of moderating, providing an understanding of group process and dynamics, self and respondent management, and troubleshooting difficult situations. You will learn useful hints and tips to smooth your path.

The course is run over a day and a half with a limited number of participants to ensure everyone has enough time to practice, ask questions, and receive feedback. You will practice listening and eliciting skills, moderate part of a group online, and learn how to evaluate moderating skills. You will be able to reflect on your own moderating, and will receive coaching from two very experienced qualitative researchers.

The course will be held online but will refer to both online and face to face techniques.

Learning outcomes/learning objectives

You will have

• A better understanding of how to start and manage focus groups
• More effective listening skills, better eliciting and probing for insight
• Refined and extended your existing range of techniques to support the group process
• Insight into your own developmental pathway

Who will benefit?

Qualitative researchers/moderators with some experience who want to maximise their own potential, and who may need to help develop others.

Learning method

Delegates will be required to prepare a section of a topic guide for moderating an online focus group. You will also take part in the group as a respondent, which is a valuable learning experience.

The first training day will be a mix of theory and exercises. The group moderation will be recorded and will be available online prior to the coaching session, which takes place the following afternoon.

Course delivery mode

Online, virtual classroom

Trainer bios

Mo Ressler

With a degree in Psychology Mo joined Bill Schlackman’s famous market research agency, as a graduate trainee.  She went on to work in creative development research at Ogilvy & Mather.  She then changed track as a TV researcher on entertainment and documentary programmes at the BBC before returning to research as an independent qualitative research consultant. 

She has specialised over the years in strategic brand development, NPD and  public consultation work.  In the last fifteen years she has been working as a qualitative research training consultant, delivering regular courses to the MRS and as a relationship counsellor.

Joanna Chrzanowska

I am a Fellow of the MRS and an Accredited Trainer specialising in qualitative research skills, thinking and methods. I was an early adopter of online qualitative methods. In a lifelong career, I can count the depths and groups I have done in the thousands. I have published ‘Interviewing Groups and Individuals in Qualitative Market Research’ (Sage) and a number of eBooks.