This article describes how the Division for Learning Disabilities surveyed interdisciplinary experts and conducted a Delphi procedure to develop a list of competencies to guide preparation for teaching students with learning disabilities. The list of validated competencies determined to be essential for the preparation of professionals is listed,…

Describes results of a Delphi study that was conducted to gather information to assist in defining the future of computer-mediated communication (CMC) in higher education. Results indicate that applications of CMC will focus on supporting classroom activities and facilitating cooperative learning and that one obstacle is faculty attitudes. (31…

Whether consensus existed among groups involved in implementing the Federal Rehabilitation Act of 1973 was examined through the Delphi technique for legislators, policymakers, directors of rehabilitation centers, and client training staffs. Different perceptions of objectives are highlighted, and the usefulness of the Delphi technique is…

In higher education, approaches to teaching are becoming more student-centred, which demands different teaching competencies. Therefore, it is necessary to have an adequate framework of teaching competencies that can be used for evaluation purposes. The weaknesses of the existing frameworks are that they do not pay attention to the person as…

Research is important to the image, visibility, and viability of school nursing. Each state school nursing association should evaluate member commitment to school nursing research based on their unique set of financial, educational, and organizational resources. A 3-round Delphi study was conducted in which Florida school nurses identified…

Agencies funding early childhood education projects, policy analysts, and research consumers have created a demand for research tools generating data with applied reliability. This paper examines the focus group as a social science research tool which meets this demand. Part 1 defines a focus group as a carefully planned discussion designed to…

Selected members of the Rural Education Special Interest Group (RE/SIG) of the American Educational Research Association participated in a modified Delphi study to examine the agenda for rural educational research proposed by the Federal Interagency Committee on Education (FICE) Subcommittee on Rural Education. The Delphi technique is a procedure…

Although the major locus of mental health care in the United States is in community agencies, funding cutbacks threaten the services those agencies provide. To assist human service managers in developing guidelines and concrete action strategies for dealing with financial problems, 106 mental health professionals (e.g., agency directors, technical…

Market research, important for professional renewal, is a critical part of continuing education program planning. It includes attention to learning needs and learner motivation to participate in continuing education. Informal market research makes use of internal sources, such as enrollment data, program evaluations, policy statements, and staff…

Six state 2-year technical colleges in Georgia were seeking Accreditation Board of Engineering Technology (ABET) approval for a pilot seven-quarter electronic engineering technology program that culminates in an associate of sciences degree. A curriculum revision project that involved a modification of the Delphi technique and input from advisory…

A study was conducted to (1) identify obstacles to self-directed learning, (2) develop strategies to overcome them, and (3) identify the self-directed learning readiness level of two groups of employees for possible clues in improving self-directed learning in the Phoenix Air Guard. The study used two group processes (the Delphi technique with a…

A standard-setting experiment was conducted in which one group of participants was instructed to refrain from discussing their recommended test standards and another group was requested to report the reasons underlying their recommendations. The procedures used were designed to induce convergence of recommendations, but did not require consensus.…

In order to explore the possibility of basing the Ontario Library Association's (OLA's) professional development programming on systematic needs assessment, a pilot project was undertaken to determine the professional development needs of library workers in Ontario and to experiment with the Nominal Group Technique (NGT)--a means of providing for…

This document reports the findings of a study which used the Delphi Technique to survey the attitudes of a representative group of professionals toward developments in the curriculum, the design of instructional materials, and the use of new technology by classroom teachers at the kindergarten through ninth grade levels. Participants included…

The purpose of a study was to develop a curriculum for the National 4-H Executive Development Institute. The Extension Committee on Organization and Policy approved five 1-week sessions to be held every 6 months for 2 years. A Delphi panel selected items for a questionnaire used to determine curriculum content. Using a random numbers table, a 50…