• Korean Journal of Human Ecology
• /
• v.19 no.6
• /
• pp.1115-1125
• /
• 2010

This study investigated how Korean food is perceived within a healthy diet and what kinds of eating habits Korean people have. A Focus Group Interview (FGI) was conducted with participants who were experts on diet. Data were categorized into five groups using content analysis. categories were as follows: 1) Korean food and health assessment, 2) opinion on Koreans' current eating habits, 3) characteristics of Korean food, 4) comparison of Korean food in the past and present, 5) a plan for healthy diet. Results showed that a healthy diet should not only include a lot of vegetables, simple and unprocessed food as well as less spicy food, but that it should also be well-balanced nutritionally.

• Women's Health Nursing
• /
• v.21 no.3
• /
• pp.184-196
• /
• 2015

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the experiences of Sanhujori facility use among the first time mothers in Korea. Methods: A qualitative study was conducted, using focus group interview. Data were collected from the 24 first time mothers of 4 focus groups, who had given birth within 6 month and had used one of the Sanhujori facilities located in C province, Korea. After obtaining written informed consent from all participants, each session of the focus group was audio-taped and transcribed into verbatim. Data were analyzed using content analysis in order to identify significant themes. Results: Four major themes that emerged from the data were as follows. 1) Promoting postpartum physical recovery through a enough time with only focusing on herself, 2) Promoting postpartum psychological recovery through emotional and informational support with peer mothers, 3) Experiencing breast feeding difficulties and disappointing with unsatisfied help from health professionals, and 4) Lack of the professional education programs regarding parenting. Conclusion: Based on these results, it will be suggested that the various support programs by not only the peer mothers co-resided in Sanhujori facilities but also the health care professionals in the Sanhujori facilities should be developed for helping a "becoming a mother" of the first time mother in the Sanhujori facilities. In addition, qualified education and counseling program, especially for the successful breast feeding, should be provided by the health care professionals for improving mothering ability of the first time mother in the Sanhujori facilities.

• Journal of Distribution Science
• /
• v.17 no.10
• /
• pp.107-114
• /
• 2019

Purpose - This is longitudinal research which aims to investigate the meaning of greenness to consumers' behavior. Consumers adopt green marketing as a new factor in product buying and consumption and more and more consumers prefer green product and services. Consumers' green buying behavior can be different from other purchasing experiences. There would be changes in the meaning of green as time passed and it can be different from countries to other countries. This study examines focus group studies with several groups. There is a ten-year gap between 2010 focus group and 2019 focus group interviews. With this ten-year gap, we can find the change of greenness to consumers. Research design, data, and methodology - The data were collected from Turkish, Korean, Kazakhstan people. This is a cross-sectional study and focus group interview was designed. We can gain information relevant to the research problem with using focus group study and get some insights into basic needs and attitudes of green marketing. The subjects for green purchase interviewee were confined to under 40 years old's shoppers regardless of gender. The first study was investigated with several groups in 2010 and the second interview were conducted in 2019. Results - Results show that the meaning of greenness for consumer has changed over time in accordance with the growing accordance of environmental sustainability. Basically, green marketing still means valuable, natural, recycle-able, good for health, clean, smart behavior, essential benefit. The concept of greenness significantly evolved since it was investigated in 2010. It moves away from focusing on specific environmental issues to considering global sustainability issues. Especially we found that greenness can be related with globalization, higher education, social status at the 2019 interview. Conclusions - This paper attempted to confirm the green marketing is essential and expands its meaning to various aspect. Usually, we can think green marketing is everywhere, therefore, people don't care about green issues in real. But consumers are adopting green marketing more and more, it can be a means to attract potential consumers. Therefore, companies should provide enough greenness information for people and they might apply greenness communication to attract potential customers.

• Nutritional Sciences
• /
• v.8 no.4
• /
• pp.256-261
• /
• 2005

Although nutrition education for pregnant women is important, few such programs have been carefully examined from the participants' perspective in Korea. Focus groups were used to identify 1) perceived eating behaviors during pregnancy and lactation, 2) factors associated with healthy eating behaviors, and 3) needs for nutrition education programs. Using a trained moderator, we conducted 7 focus group interviews with 44 pregnant women over a four-month period. Focus group discussions were video - and audio - taped, transcribed and categorized by major themes. Participants expressed interest in receiving nutrition education regarding healthy eating, weight control after delivery, weaning foods and health management, yet they showed little interest in breastfeeding. The majority of them said that meal balance and meal regularity were the most important components of good health during pregnancy. They were less likely to be confident about taking dietary supplements, including Oriental medicines. life stress and poor appetite associated with pregnancy were major barriers to healthy eating habits during pregnancy. The most important sources of nutrition and health information were friends and family members, especially those who had become pregnant recently. Qualified educators and reliable information appeared to be the most important aspects of program development. Regarding types of nutrition education, participants tended to prefer a combination of individual counseling and small group education with hands-on materials and interactive formats. The use of Web-based nutrition education was well received Major concerns about Web-based nutrition education were authenticity, tailored messages and interactive formats for sharing information. These results offer useful information for designing nutrition education programs for pregnant and lactating women in Korea for health promotion.

• Journal of the East Asian Society of Dietary Life
• /
• v.17 no.5
• /
• pp.661-670
• /
• 2007

To investigate the market potential for developing Gochujang(a traditional Korean hot pepper soybean paste) products in the UK including the European market, a qualitative consumer study utilizing focus groups was conducted on the $23rd{\sim}25^{th}$ of May, 2005. The focus group approach utilizes small groups of consumers and is very effective in determining the ways in which a product can be used, by examining consumer perceptions on the overall sensory properties of a product as well as variations in taste, flavour, and texture. A series of six consumer group studies were carried out in three different locations around the UK. Each group involved approximately eight respondents(a total of 48 respondents) and ran for at least 90 minutes. The respondents were recruited by specific criteria to achieve a cross-section of ages and genders. All respondents purchased, prepared, and ate home-cooked Oriental/Far Eastern cuisine. Consumer reactions to Gochujang in its traditional form, and in manufactured products, were explored in terms of appearance, texture, flavour, and taste the consumers' perceived uses and applications for products were also examined. Many consumers were familiar with ethnic cuisines such as Chinese, Thai, Japanese, Indian, and Tex/Mex, already preparing these foods using various convenience products at home at least twice a week. However, Korean cuisine was not mentioned by any of the respondents. The Gochujang sauce presented during the interview had broad based appeal mainly as a dipping sauce, and to a lesser degree as a marinade. Traditional Gochujang has the potential to inspire consumers who are looking for novel and authentic world cuisine products. From the sensory evaluations of various prototypes developed according to consumer reactions during the focus group interviews, three prototypes(a sauce for chicken, dipping sauce type, and BBQ sauce type) were determined for further consumer preference studies.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.4 no.4
• /
• pp.53-68
• /
• 2012

This study investigated the speech intelligibility of Korean-accented and native English focus speech for Korean and native English listeners. Three different types of focus in English, broad, narrow and contrastive, were naturally induced in semantically optimal dialogues. Seven high and seven low proficiency Korean speakers and seven native speakers participated in recording the stimuli with another native speaker. Fifteen listeners from each of Korean high & low proficiency and native groups judged audio signals of focus sentences. Results showed that Korean listeners were more accurate at identifying the focal prominence for Korean speakers' narrow focus speech than that of native speakers, and this suggests that the interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit-talker (ISIB-T) held true for narrow focus regardless of Korean speakers' and listeners' proficiency. However, Korean listeners did not outperform native listeners for Korean speakers' production of narrow focus, which did not support for the ISIB-listener (L). Broad and contrastive focus speech did not provide evidence for either the ISIB-T or ISIB-L. These findings are explained by the interlanguage shared by Korean speakers and listeners where they have established more L1-like common phonetic features and phonological representations. Once semantically and syntactically interpreted in a higher level processing in Korean narrow focus speech, the narrow focus was phonetically realized in a more intelligible way to Korean listeners due to the interlanguage. This may elicit ISIB. However, Korean speakers did not appear to make complete semantic/syntactic access to either broad or contrastive focus, which might lead to detrimental effects on lower level phonetic outputs in top-down processing. This is, therefore, attributed to the fact that Korean listeners did not take advantage over native listeners for Korean talkers and vice versa.

• Korean Parent-Child Health Journal
• /
• v.20 no.1
• /
• pp.28-38
• /
• 2017

Purpose: This study was aimed to identify pregnancy and childbirth experience of Vietnamese marriage migrant women who have pregnancy and childbirth experience during adaptation to Korea. Methods: A qualitative study was conducted, using focus group interview. Data were collected from October 2011 to March 2012 from 10 Vietnamese women of 2 focus groups who have experienced pregnancy or childbirth in Korea. Data were analyzed using content analysis in order to identify significant themes. Results: This study was analyzed into five major themes: 'difficulty of adaptation to other cultures', 'difficulty and joy of pregnancy', 'effort to live as a Korean', 'not-so-difficult childbirth', and 'unbearable postpartum conditions.' Conclusion: It is meaningful of this study to reveal this: for Vietnamese marriage migrant women, the support for adaptation to Korean culture and postpartum care is a priority rather than the necessity of development of the program about pregnancy and childbirth.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.3 no.3
• /
• pp.57-62
• /
• 2011

Focused items in English sentences are usually accompanied by changes in acoustic manifestation. This paper investigates the acoustic characteristics of $H^*$ in English utterances produced by natives speakers of English and Korean learners of English. To obtain more reliable results, the changes of the acoustic feature values (F0, intensity, syllable duration) were normalized by a median value and a whole duration of each utterance. Acoustic values of sentences with no focused words were compared with those of sentences with focused words within each group (Americans vs. Koreans). Sentences with focused words were compared between the two groups, too. In the instances in which a significant Group x Focus Location (initial, middle and final of a sentence) interaction was obtained, further analysis testing the effect of Group on each Focus Location was conducted. The analysis revealed that Korean learners of English produced focused words with lower F0, lower intensity and shorter syllable duration than native speakers of English. However, the effect of intensity change caused by focus was not significant within each group. Further analysis examining the interaction of Group and Focus Location showed that the change in F0 produced by Korean group was significantly lower in the middle and the final positions of sentences than by American group. Implications for the intonation training were also discussed.

• Research in Community and Public Health Nursing
• /
• v.21 no.2
• /
• pp.188-199
• /
• 2010

Purpose: The objective of this study was to understand the meaning of experience on community health centers (post) practice of nursing students. Methods: This is qualitative research using focus groups. Data were collected through in-depth interviews performed from November 10 to December 11, 2009. The focus group interviews were conducted to 22 nursing students on their subjective experiences. The data were analyzed by the Colaizzi's method, in which the meaningful statements were extracted. Results: Seven theme-clusters were identified from fourteen themes and thirty-one sub-themes. The seven theme-clusters were 1) widening of experiences; 2) feeling of warm heart; 3) feeling of satisfaction; 4) feeling of being unfulfilled; 5) difficulties; 6) new awareness; and 7) good memories. Conclusion: Through a variety of relationships and self-regulation in community health centers (post) practice, the nursing students may have the feeling of worthiness, new awareness of community nursing, and visions for the future to rebuild.

• Journal of Korean Public Health Nursing
• /
• v.31 no.1
• /
• pp.19-33
• /
• 2017

Purpose: This study was conducted to explore the meaning and contents of high-quality aged care facilities and provide basic data for evaluation of service quality in such facilities. Methods: The focus group interviews and participants consisted of two user groups, for a total of 16 family caregivers of the elderly living in facilities and four service provider groups, for a total of 26 chief managers and caregivers working in aged care facilities. All interviews were recorded and transcribed as they occurred. Content analysis was used and debriefing notes were referred to in order to analyze the data. Results: Four themes of a high-quality aged care facility emerged from the analysis; 1) a place to rest for comfortable later years; 2) systematic value-based management; 3) providing professional care; 4) comprehensive service provision in response to diverse needs. Conclusion: The findings of the study showed the importance of client centered care and ethical mindset of providers, which had not been included in the existing quality evaluation programs. Based on these results, medical treatments, end-of-life care and more comprehensive and extended services including family care need to be provided in facilities to ensure good quality aged care.