Drawing on the Delphi Technique to Explore Areas of Convergence and Divergence Among Expert Opinions in the Field of Teaching

Abstract

The chapter brings together the individual chapter perspectives on theorizing teaching and thus initiating exchanges among the authors on outstanding issues and discrepancies to provide insights for how research on teaching may move forward. The Delphi study conducted for this aim was based on summaries of the answers of all individual chapters on three questions; authors were asked to rate and comment on each other’s ideas. Comparing ratings and comments exposed the variability in the contributors’ perspectives on (a) the existence, degree of development, and grain size of theories of teaching (first question), (b) the attributes of theories of teaching (second question), and (c) the process of developing theories of teaching (third question). We identify general trends with respect to these issues, leaving a more in-depth discussion for the next chapter.