Delphi Method in a Digital Age

Environmental Management, 2013

The interactive capacity of the Internet offers benefits that are intimately linked with contemporary research innovation in the natural resource and environmental studies domains. However, e-research methodologies, such as the e-Delphi technique, have yet to undergo critical review. This study advances methodological discourse on the e-Delphi technique by critically assessing an e-Delphi case study. The analysis suggests that the benefits of using e-Delphi are noteworthy but the authors acknowledge that researchers are likely to face challenges that could potentially compromise research validity and reliability. To ensure that these issues are sufficiently considered when planning and designing an e-Delphi, important facets of the technique are discussed and recommendations are offered to help the environmental researcher avoid potential pitfalls associated with coordinating e-Delphi research.

Journal of Advanced Nursing, 2000

Information & Management, 2004

Journal of Advanced Nursing, 1987

The development ofthe Delphi technique, as a survey method of research, and examples ofits use are described. The technique's key characteristics, anonymity, use of experts and controlled feedback, are examined. The method's usefulness in structuring group communication for the discussion of specific issues and as an aid to policy making is discussed in the light ofthe technique's perceived drawbacks and limitations.

2016

The Delphi technique as a research method for achieving consensus of opinion of participants, is sometimes seen as a less reliable research method. This is because the participants do change their opinions from one round of the exercise to the other. Instead of seeing this as weakness, it is actually viewed as the strength of the technique. The controlled feedbacks allow participants to view their individual submissions in the light of the insight of the whole group. The Delphi technique is virtually the only research method that allows participants to interact with the opinions of each others, without coercion, adjust one's position where necessary and yet retain anonymity. The thoughtful selection of participants and effective communication throughout the exercise ensures that the outcome of the exercise is truly a consensus opinion of the group that can offer an appropriate solution to the research question. The participants for the Delphi exercise, being reported, were chosen from the strategic and tactical levels of leadership of the client, end-user and the service provider. Although participants changed their opinions from one round to the other, the net result showed a more refined selection of appropriate Key Performance Indicators, without evidence of complicity or coercion.

International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 2015

The Delphi method is a pragmatic research method created in the 1950s by researchers at the RAND Corporation for use in policy making, organizational decision making, and to inform direct practices. While the Delphi method has been regularly utilized in mixed methods studies, far fewer studies have been completed using the Delphi method for qualitative research. Despite the utility of the Delphi method in social science research, little guidance is provided for using the Delphi in the context of theory building, in primarily qualitative studies, and in the context of community-engaged research (CER). This article will emphasize new and modest innovations in the Delphi method for improving the overall rigor of the method in theory building and CER.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to identify the key discrepancies in the qualitative research approach and its effect on research outcomes using Delphi web technique. Methods: An electronic questionnaire was used to collect experts’ opinions over two rounds. A panel of 24 experts filled questionnaire in the first round and 17 of them continued in the second round. Answers to open-ended questions were tabulated, summarized and analyzed thematically generating 44 items. Participants then were asked to rate their level of agreement with these item statements in the second round. Results: Scholars used and viewed the same qualitative approaches differently with a percentage of 76.5%. The paradigm for qualitative research is not well defined with a percentage of 70.6%. Every book and every published research article seems to describe qualitative methods differently. Furthermore, schools of qualitative research defined assumptions and their purposes differently. Conclusion: Recentl...

Electronic Journal of Business Research Methods, 2019

After almost 30 years of being used in the information system (IS) discipline, only a few studies have focused on how IS scholars apply the method's guidelines to design Delphi studies. Thus, this paper focuses on the use of the Delphi method in IS research. To do so, articles published between 2004 and 2017 in the Senior IS Scholars' collection of journals of the Association of Information Systems (AIS), describing Delphi studies, were analised. Based on analysis of sixteen ( ) retrieved IS studies, we concluded that IS researchers have applied the method's most important phases and the procedural recommendations to promote rigor were considered in the majority of the analised studies. Nonetheless, IS researchers still need to include detailed information about (1) the steps taken to ensure the validity of the achieved results, (2) better describe the process of selecting and recruiting the experts, and (3) experiment with innovative techniques to keep participants involved in the Delphi process.

Qualitative research provides many methodological tools for understanding deeper meanings associated with complex phenomena and processes (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005). Qualitative research is thus regularly used, alongside quantitative and mixed methods, in the context of community-based research (Miles & Huberman, 1994). Qualitative methods provide community researchers and practitioners with tools that encourage community member participation and voice in addressing and understanding community strengths, histories, and challenges (Johnson, 2006; Minkler, 2005). One of the qualitative methods useful for promoting community participation in research is the Delphi method. The qualitative version of the Delphi is a flexible research method grounded in pragmatism and structured participation (Dalkey & Helmer, 1963). The Delphi method was developed to provide a structured mechanism to attain insights and perspectives from people with a specific expertise on a topic or issue in order to inform decision-making about policy and practice (Dalkey & Helmer, 1963). The Delphi method utilizes structured anonymous communication between experts in order to gather consensus perspectives about an issue or topic that can then be translated or used to inform decision-making about a specific issue or within a specific context (Birdsall, 2004; Dalkey & Helmer, 1963). Since the aim of community-based research is to generate knowledge that can directly improve community systems and the lives of residents through involving community members and stakeholders to some degree in the research process, the qualitative Delphi method is an essential tool for community researchers.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to identify the key discrepancies in the qualitative research approach and its effect on research outcomes using Delphi web technique. Methods: An electronic questionnaire was used to collect experts’ opinions over two rounds. A panel of 24 experts filled questionnaire in the first round and 17 of them continued in the second round. Answers to open-ended questions were tabulated, summarized and analyzed thematically generating 44 items. Participants then were asked to rate their level of agreement with these item statements in the second round. Results: Scholars used and viewed the same qualitative approaches differently with a percentage of 76.5%. The paradigm for qualitative research is not well defined with a percentage of 70.6%. Every book and every published research article seems to describe qualitative methods differently. Furthermore, schools of qualitative research defined assumptions and their purposes differently. Conclusion: Recentl...