Focus Study Essay

Each focus study had certain strengths and weaknesses in relation to the research activity that either improved or hindered the insights around the perception and construction of children in commercial culture. The strength in Cook (2005) is the range of scholarly views that are utilised within the report, ensuring that it succeeded in its aim to examine these views. This is a strength shared with Sherbine (2015), with both focus studies creating new meanings of children within commercial culture – something which is important in research as it allows the discovery of new facts and relationships (Greig, Taylor, & MacKay, 2007). As for weaknesses, the Cook focus study is quite old meaning that some of the research isn’t exactly current and thus
Both focus studies share the ethics that the research is not available elsewhere and is important to children as they are updating the views of previous scholars and re-interpreting and constructing them into something new. That is where the similarities end, as Cook (2005) includes no children contribution in the research and therefore does not enhance children participation. According to Hughes (2010), “for interpretivists, knowledge is valid if it is authentic – that is, the true voice of the participants in their research” (9) and as the participants are the scholars, the focus study is effectively valid in the chosen paradigm. Sherbine’s (2015) poststructuralist paradigm also holds the same validity standards as Cook’s, simply with stricter limits, which is achieved by Sherbine through the inclusion of both a child interview (the true focus of the issue) and additional support from scholars (the ‘voices’ of the research). Ethical standards are upheld as the focus study includes a child’s participation which supports their right to exert autonomy and