A Modified Delphi Technique for Obtaining Consensus on Institutional Research Priorities

This article describes a modified Delphi technique for use in establishing research needs and priorities at the institutional level. Six steps comprise the technique: identification of needs, collection of rankings of the identified needs by institutional administrators, calculation of the rank of identified needs using an importance/consensus method, feedback of rankings to campus‐level administrators, planning of actions with campus administrators and reporting of developed plans to all administrators. The modified Delphi technique relies on individual or small‐group interviews during the first round of information gathering and relies on much more face‐to‐face interaction during later rounds of data analysis and reporting than does the traditional Delphi technique. It is suggested that this process is both efficient and effective as a method for obtaining institutional consensus on research needs and priorities.