The Use of the Delphi Technique to Effect Decisions Concerning the College Level Examination Program by Higher Education Representatives

This study investigated the use of the Delphi technique in educational decision making. Utah State institutions of higher education employ the College Level Examination Program (CLEP) to award credit in lieu of course work. However, since no uniform policies existed among them, 145 persons were selected on a representative basis to recommend a norming group to use for performance comparisons, the standard by which to judge CLEP performance, and the levels for maximum and minimum credit. The Delphi technique, which employs a round-by-round questionnaire with feedback procedure, was used for six rounds to obtain sufficient consensus on the three aforementioned issues. Initially, the participants were asked to select a norming group and by round three End of Year Sophomores (National Group) emerged with a clear majority (68.7 percent). During the remaining rounds, percentile rank, with 67.8 percent in favor by round five, was selected as the standard and the 53.4 and 80.8 percentiles by round six were selected for the respective minimum and and maximum credit levels. Participant response varied from 61.4 percent responding on round one to 39.3 percent on round six. Since the standard deviation tended to consistently decrease on successive rounds as participant consensus was approximated, it can probably be concluded that the Delphi technique was a useful procedure with which to effect decisions among higher education representatives