Rulkens Charlotte C S, Peels Rik, Mokkink Lidwine B, Haven Tamarinde, Bouter Lex
Department of Philosophy, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, North Holland, The Netherlands.
Faculty of Religion and Theology and Faculty of Humanities, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, North Holland, The Netherlands.
F1000Res. 2024 Dec 16;13:710. doi: 10.12688/f1000research.148726.2. eCollection 2024.
Despite the significant role of consensus and dissensus in knowledge production, formal approaches to consensus are notably less common in the humanities compared to their frequent application in natural, social, and life sciences. This article therefore explores the potential of expert consensus methods in humanities-related research.
In order to do so, an interdisciplinary team of both sciences researchers experienced in consensus methods and researchers familiar with the domain of the humanities and epistemology, conducted a literary review and exchanged their expertise in multiple brainstorm sessions.
This resulted in the identification of six key elements of expert consensus methods. It also provided for an overview of different types of expert consensus methods that regularly used in the natural, social, and life sciences: Delphi studies, nominal groups, consensus conferences, and Glaser's state of the art method and illustrative examples from both sciences and humanities-related studies. An overview of possible purposes for applying these methods is provided to identify the research contexts in which these methods have proven their value, which can be extrapolated to humanities related issues for which these methods seem promising.
The comparisons and categorisation show that, when focusing on the purposes, there seem to be humanities-related issues that may lend themselves better to structured expert consensus methods than their subject matter and research methods might suggest. When deliberately applied in context chosen by researchers with expertise in a specific humanities domain, expert consensus methods can accelerate epistemic process, enhance transparency, increase replicability, stimulate diversity, and encourage fair processes in humanities research and the application of its findings.
尽管共识和分歧在知识生产中发挥着重要作用，但与在自然科学、社会科学和生命科学中的频繁应用相比，正式的共识方法在人文学科中明显不那么常见。因此，本文探讨了专家共识方法在人文相关研究中的潜力。
为此，一个由在共识方法方面经验丰富的科学研究人员以及熟悉人文学科和认识论领域的研究人员组成的跨学科团队进行了文献综述，并在多次头脑风暴会议中交流了他们的专业知识。
这导致确定了专家共识方法的六个关键要素。它还概述了自然科学、社会科学和生命科学中经常使用的不同类型的专家共识方法：德尔菲研究、名义小组、共识会议、格拉泽的最新技术方法，以及来自科学和人文相关研究的示例。提供了应用这些方法的可能目的概述，以确定这些方法已证明其价值的研究背景，这些背景可以外推到这些方法似乎有前景的人文相关问题。
比较和分类表明，当关注目的时，似乎存在一些人文相关问题，这些问题可能比其主题和研究方法所表明的更适合结构化专家共识方法。当由特定人文学科领域的专家研究人员在选定的背景中有意应用时，专家共识方法可以加速认知过程、提高透明度、增加可重复性、促进多样性，并鼓励人文研究及其结果应用中的公平过程。
