Exploring Focus Groups as a Technique for Knowledge Acquisition and Conceptualization Phases in Ontology Engineering

Daniele Spoladore, Sara Vannelli, Filippo Visintin, Alberto Trombetta

Abstract: Focus Groups (FGs) bring together domain experts to discuss ideas and co-design in a collaborative way. Among the techniques suggested by Ontology Engineering Methodologies for knowledge acquisition, FGs are not suggested. In this work, we propose a preliminary experiment to assess the potentialities of FGs to validate a given conceptualization and elicit implicit and tacit knowledge through collaborative discussion. The ex-periment consisted of 5 FGs - guided by two analysts and a set of Competency Questions (CQs) - with different numbers of participants, who were asked to share their opinions over a conceptual map in the fields of Medical Devices (MDs) and Health Technology Assessment (HTA). All experts had experience in adopting MDs. They were MD manufacturers, clinicians, HTA analysts, or managers responsible for introducing new MDs into healthcare facilities. This work sketches the qualitative results from the FGs' discussions and presents the quantitative results of a questionnaire aimed at investigating participants' perspectives on FGs experience; in particular, knowledge acquisition and flexibility features, satisfaction, perceived role, and collaboration were assessed. Although preliminary, the results indicate that FG has the potential to elicit implicit and tacit knowledge and that using CQs to guide the discussion can result in an enhanced domain analysis phase during Ontology Engineering.

External IDs:dblp:conf/metroxraine/SpoladoreVVT25