J Man Manip Ther 2024 (Feb); 32 (1): 111-117

Table 1.

Stages of virtual Nominal group technique.

Stage one Intro & Explanation	Introduction of each individual including their area of study/background. Explanation of the purpose of the meeting and re-education on the stages to be expected. Participants had a chance to ask any initial questions for clarification regarding the pre-work.
Stage two Silent Idea Generation	The specific goal of the NGT was presented to the workgroup as ‘prioritizing gaps in mechanisms research for force based manipulation’. All participants were asked to upload their ideas onto a shared Google document (Google Corp, CA, USA). A blank document with columns representing the proposed mechanistic domains was presented to the participants to fill in during the NGT session. Participants were asked to silently generate ideas without discussion. A total of 10 minutes was provided.
Stage three Sharing Ideas	Participants were invited to share their ideas while the moderator shared the document on the screen so that all participants could follow along. Each participant offered one idea at a time while this stage continued in a round robin format until all ideas had been presented. No debate occurred during this stage.
Stage four Group Discussion	Participants were invited to seek explanation and clarification on any of the proposed gaps produced during stage three. The moderator ensured that all individuals were heard and that the overall tone remained non-judgmental. Participants were able to suggest modifications to current items, proposal of new items, and relocation/consolidation of items if similar gaps were present. Edits to proposed gaps were only able to occur if agreed upon by the individual who defined the gap.
Stage five Voting	Participants were asked to vote on the gaps identified in stage four using a 4-point Likert scale (Strongly Disagree, Disagree, Agree, Strongly Agree). This was completed several hours following completion of the vNGT. Participants were provided a web link to voting through the Qualtrics web-based survey system (Seattle, WA, US). The questionnaire was stored on a password protected server through Qualtrics software. This company is a common vendor used for survey research and has significant data protection policies in place.