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Each semester, I have the opportunity to step into undergraduate and graduate classrooms as a guest lecturer on pharmaceutical marketing research.
The focus is usually qualitative research, and more specifically, the role of the moderator. I’m invited in because this is the work I’ve spent my career doing -- conducting 1:1 interviews and focus groups across the healthcare ecosystem, from physicians and patients to caregivers, payers, and other industry stakeholders. And because I’m fortunate to work alongside professionals who represent the very best of our field.
After many years in the business, I’ve developed a point of view about what tends to matter most in practice. I’ve seen which skills help researchers earn trust quickly, which ones take longer to develop, and where early-career professionals most often struggle as they transition from the classroom into real-world work. At the same time, I’m mindful that our industry continues to evolve, and that no single perspective -- mine included -- captures the full picture.
What follows, then, isn’t meant to be theoretical. It’s a practitioner’s perspective on the core elements we should be teaching the next generation of pharma marketing researchers, offered with respect for the many experienced voices in our industry who are also shaping how this work is done, and how it’s taught.
One of the first things I try to convey to students is that moderation is not simply about asking good questions. It’s a professional discipline -- one that brings together preparation, judgment, and constant real-time decision-making.
Strong interviews have structure and flow, but they also require flexibility. A moderator must establish credibility quickly, create a comfortable and psychologically safe environment, and guide the conversation with intent -- all without making it feel steered or constrained. Discussion guides are essential, but the ability to treat them as tools rather than scripts is what separates capable moderators from truly effective ones.
This skill set does not develop overnight. It’s built through experience, reflection, and, inevitably, through mistakes. Moderation improves with repetition and thoughtful self-critique, not shortcuts. Helping students understand that this is a craft, one that requires patience and practice, is an important place to start. I've said it before, and I will say it again here: being a moderator is performative as well. Creating a theatre for the free flow of ideas.
There’s also a more basic, and often overlooked, reality: one has to want to be a moderator. When interviewing candidates with qualitative backgrounds, I often ask a simple question: Do you enjoy moderating? The enthusiasm, or lack of it, in their response is usually quite revealing. Moderation demands energy, curiosity, and comfort being “in the room” with people. It’s not a role everyone is drawn to, and that’s perfectly fine. But for those who are, it can be deeply engaging and enormously rewarding work.
As much as moderation involves asking questions, it is even more about listening. And not just listening to what is said, but to how it is said -- and to what goes unspoken.
With experience, certain patterns become easier to recognize: where respondents hesitate, where they fall back on familiar or well-rehearsed language, and where emotion surfaces, sometimes subtly. You begin to notice changes in pacing: when someone speeds up, when they slow down, when they choose their words carefully, and when they don’t. These moments often point toward the most meaningful insights, particularly in healthcare research, where respondents may be navigating professional expectations, their interpretation of data, personal beliefs, and very real emotional experiences.
Teaching students how to listen at this level takes intention, not to mention a significant amount of attention and energy. It means encouraging them to slow the conversation down, to resist the impulse to fill silence, and to stay curious even when answers sound clear or familiar. To maintain the same assiduousness on the first interview in a study as on the last interview in a study, after you think you've "heard it all." With time and practice, this kind of listening becomes more habitual, but it rarely starts that way.
It’s easy to underestimate how much of the success of qualitative research is determined before the first interview ever begins. In practice -- and as my colleague Bart Weiner has long emphasized to me -- preparation is where much of the real work happens.
A discussion guide reflects priorities and underlying hypotheses. How questions are sequenced, what is intentionally left open-ended, and where flexibility is built in all shape what respondents are able and willing to share. The same holds true for stimulus strategy: when materials are introduced, how they are framed, and how much context is provided can meaningfully influence the conversation.
One tool we’ve developed at ThinkGen, and that I know others use in similar forms, is a listening guide. This adds another layer of preparedness, particularly for client-side and agency stakeholders observing interviews. Structured much like a discussion guide, a listening guide asks questions of the listener -- prompting them to reflect on what they are hearing, what surprises them, and what patterns may be emerging as the research unfolds.
These decisions are not mechanical. They require a clear understanding of the research objectives, along with sensitivity to the human dynamics of the conversation itself. Helping students view preparation as strategic rather than procedural can significantly elevate the quality and impact of their qualitative work.
As the industry continues to place greater emphasis on patient-centricity, qualitative research increasingly asks us to engage with lived experience in a deeper way.
Patients and caregivers often bring complex emotions into research conversations. Creating space for those stories requires empathy, patience, and a willingness to sit with uncertainty. It also requires moderators to be aware of their own responses, and to avoid moving too quickly toward interpretation or summary.
Empathy isn’t something everyone arrives with fully formed, but it is something that can be developed. Teaching students how to approach sensitive topics thoughtfully, and how to listen without judgment, is becoming an essential part of qualitative training.
Another area that deserves continued emphasis is behavioral science, particularly the disparity between what people say they intend to do and what they actually do.
In healthcare marketing research, respondents are often thoughtful and well-intentioned, yet real-world behavior is influenced by habit, context, and constraint. Recognizing this “say/do gap” helps researchers interpret findings more accurately and avoid taking stated intent at face value.
Students benefit from learning how to ask questions that explore past behavior, decision context, and real-world trade-offs. Over time, this perspective helps them move beyond surface-level insight and toward a more realistic understanding of what's likely to happen.
Exposure to a range of qualitative methods is important. One-on-one interviews, triads, focus groups, and ethnographic approaches each offer different advantages, and understanding those differences is part of becoming a well-rounded researcher.
That said, method selection is ultimately about judgment. Choosing the right approach depends on the research question, the audience, and the overall business decision the work is meant to inform. Teaching students to think critically about these trade-offs helps them avoid defaulting to familiar methods when a different approach might be more effective.
If moderation is where insight begins, synthesis is where it becomes useful.
Strong synthesis looks beyond individual quotes or themes and asks how patterns connect, where tensions exist, and what the implications are for business / commercial decision-making. In pharma, qualitative research often plays a role in high-stakes decisions: early development planning, licensing assessments, positioning strategies, or portfolio choices.
Helping students understand that synthesis is about clarity and relevance -- not just thoroughness -- prepares them to contribute meaningfully once they enter the field.
After many years in this industry, I have a perspective on what tends to prepare researchers for success when moderating. At the same time, I’m aware that the field continues to evolve, and that many experienced practitioners bring equally valuable viewpoints shaped by different paths and specialties.
My hope is that essays like this prompt conversation among those of us who mentor, teach, and hire the next generation of insights professionals. What skills are we emphasizing appropriately? Where might we be falling short? And how can we continue to refine how we prepare people to do this work well?
There’s no single right answer -- but it’s a conversation worth continuing.
