Organizing focus groups was used as an effective qualitative research method to examine collective opinions of participants on a specific topic. Within NESP 5.5 project, focus groups consist of an exploratory study to explore the psychological antecedents of human aesthetic assessment of underwater sceneries at the GBR among three groups of different cultural backgrounds: Chinese, non-indigenous Australians and First People Australians. Focus group folder contains one dataset report, and three folders (Australian, Chinese, First People) with seven images.

Methods:

Within the NESP 5.5 project, 29 respondents were recruited in four focus groups:

1) Focus group with 7 non-Indigenous Australian citizen respondents: 2nd May 2019

2) Focus group with 8 Chinese visitor respondents: 7th May 2019

3) 1st focus group with 5 First Peoples respondents: 31st May 2019

4) 2nd focus group with 9 First Peoples respondents: 5th June 2019

During each focus group, respondents were asked to share their top-of-mind and personal experiences with the GBR. Next, they worked together to rank 20 underwater images of the GBR from what they thought to be the most beautiful, to the least beautiful scenery in two rounds (10 images/round). These 20 images represent five environmental conditions of the GBR (highly aesthetic, medium aesthetic, low aesthetic, polluted areas with the presence of some rubbish and coral restoration sites). These were selected based on aesthetic ratings in project NESP TWQ 3.2.3 and an agreement among the research team of eight experts. With the approval of all participants, each focus group was audio-recorded and later transcribed using REV Ltd.’s transcribing services. For more information about the audio recordings please contact: Dr (Jenny) Dung Le (email: dung.ltp@vinuni.edu.vn )

Further information can be found in the following publication:

Le, D., Becken, S., & Whitford, M. (2020) A cross-cultural investigation of the great barrier Reef aesthetics using eye-tracking and face-reader technologies. Report to the National Environmental Science Program. Reef and Rainforest Research Centre Limited, Cairns. Published online at https://nesptropical.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/NESP-TWQ-Project-5.5-Technical-Report-2.pdf

Format:

The focus group folder includes one dataset report form and three subfolders labelled Australians, Chinese and First People. Each subfolder contains images in Png format showing picture rankings during these focus groups.

Data Dictionary:

- FG: Focus Group

- Australian FG1/2: Picture 1/2 taken in the focus group discussion with non-indigenous Australian participants.

- Chinese FG1/2: Picture 1/2 taken in the focus group discussion with Chinese participants.

- First People FG1: Picture taken in the first focus group discussion with First People participants.

- First People FG1.R1/2: Picture 1/2 taken in the second focus group discussion with First People participants.

References:

Data Location:

This dataset is filed in the eAtlas enduring data repository at: data\custodian\2019-2022-NESP-TWQ-5\5.5_Measuring-aesthetics