The uses and abuses of nominal group technique in polytechnic course evaluation

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Abstract
Traditional research methods have only limited usefulness for course evaluations that are designed to improve course practice. We have identified a number of weaknesses in these methods that are counteracted when nominal group technique is used. Nominal group technique restricts the influence of the researcher, it encourages participants to use their own categories for framing and summarising their responses, it sustains the autonomy of individuals in the face of group pressure, it provides an evaluation context in which all participants are aware of the full range of possible responses. In fact, it focuses on the consumer rather than the producer. It does this in the face of a number of organisational difficulties which we have managed to minimise as our experience of the technique grows. Yet the method also imposes a cost. The cost, we suggest, comes from underestimating the political pressures that make an actual group from the conglomerate of individuals that share certain labels.

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