Seeking consensus through the use of the Delphi technique in health sciences research.

Abstract

The purposes of this paper are to explain how the Delphi technique has been used as a research methodology for seeking consensus among experts in the health science literature and to offer a model for its future use. The authors discuss the proposed model by exploring how the Delphi technique was used to develop a survey tool to explore mentoring practices of health science faculty members. The authors' aims are to explain the use of this methodological approach in obtaining face and content validity of survey tools and to apprize the scholarly community in the health sciences of the relevance of the model.