Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-788cddb947-kc5xb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-10-12T09:23:24.520Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

13 - Delphi study

from Part 2 - Research methods

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 June 2018

Get access

Summary

Introduction

The purpose of a Delphi study is to ‘obtain the most reliable consensus of opinion of a group of experts … by a series of intensive questionnaires interspersed with controlled opinion feedback’ (Dalkey and Helmer, 1963, 458). Helmer and Rescher were researchers employed by the RAND Corporation, the first organization ever to be called a ‘think-tank’, working for the US Air Force. The research project they were working on required the design of a method that would lead to predication of future events based on expert knowledge. Together they designed, justified and applied a method that was later to become known as the ‘Delphi’ method. In the first public dissemination of the development of this method, in 1959 Helmer and Rescher offered this explanation of why their method was best suited to prediction:

The informed expert, with his resources of background knowledge and his cultivated sense of relevance and bearing of the generalities in particular cases, is best able to carry out the application of the quasi-laws necessary for reasoned prediction in this field…. For the expert has at his ready disposal a large store of (mostly unarticulated) background knowledge and a refined sensitivity to its relevance, through the intuitive application of which he is often able to produce trustworthy personal probabilities regarding hypotheses in his area of expertness.

(Helmer and Rescher, 1959, 31)

The name ‘Delphi’ was first applied to this technique by Kaplan (Woundenberg, 1991), and the association with Greek mythology was no accident. The temple at Delphi was the supposed location where the oracle Pythia would consult the gods and interpret their responses for the waiting public. There is a hint here that this was a somewhat less than complimentary reference but nonetheless the name quickly became the accepted term for this research method.

The original purpose of a Delphi study was to predict future trends but over the past 50 years this method has been applied to many studies that sought a consensus of expert opinion, not always concerned with predicting future events, but always concerned with ‘expert opinion’.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Facet
Print publication year: 2013

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Delphi study
  • Alison Jane Pickard
  • Book: Research Methods in Information
  • Online publication: 08 June 2018
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.29085/9781783300235.017
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Delphi study
  • Alison Jane Pickard
  • Book: Research Methods in Information
  • Online publication: 08 June 2018
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.29085/9781783300235.017
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Delphi study
  • Alison Jane Pickard
  • Book: Research Methods in Information
  • Online publication: 08 June 2018
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.29085/9781783300235.017
Available formats
×