Saskia Baltrusch

209 Chapter 8 participants that scored higher (improved), lower (decreased) and the same (maintained) when wearing the exoskeleton (TRYOUT), compared to the control condition (BASE). 2.3 Qualitative method After the quantitative assessment, we conducted a focus group and a double interview to collect perspectives and opinions on the potential use of an exoskeleton in the workplace and the experience with the SPEXOR exoskeleton. Focus groups are used in qualitative research to gather opinions in an interactive group setting. By creating a permissive environment, the researcher encourages participants to share different perceptions without the need to reach consensus [31]. The double interview is a spoken conversation between researcher and two participants, with limited discussion between the participants. The goal of an interview is to capture the diversity of participants’ responses in their own words. Furthermore, it obtains rich and detailed data about individual experiences [32]. Participants The focus group discussion included a sample of the population measured in the quantitative approach. To represent the larger population of luggage handlers, we included employees of different work experience, age, work location and responsibility. Participants were not informed about the results of the quantitative measurements before the focus group study, as this could have influenced their opinion. Since we also aimed to gather opinions on an exoskeleton from the management perspective, a double interview was conducted with one team leader and one process coordinator from KLM, who had been working in the luggage handling sector previously. We did not include them in the focus group, since being from the same working environment, but working in higher positions, their presence could inhibit disclosure among the remaining participants [32]. Procedure Prior to the start of the focus group/interview, participants had to fill in a short questionnaire to obtain demographic details. Subsequently, the focus group discussion and the guided interview were conducted by a moderator (JK) and the main investigator (SB), using a discussion guide (Table 1). In the double interview, the questions were used to focus on potential implementation strategies and to 8