CRITICAL INCIDENT TECHNIQUE ASS. PROF. DR. AHMED ATHAB AL-ZABAIDI

OBJECTIVES Definition. History. When to use CIT? Steps of CIT. Advantages and disadvantages. Incident reporting form.

DEFINITION Critical incident: is one that makes a significant difference in the outcomes of an activity. It maybe the positive factors that contribute to the success of the behaviour, or it may be a negative factor that interfere with the completion of assignment.

CRITICAL INCIDENT TECHNIQUE. Set of procedures used for collecting direct observations of human behavior that have critical significance and meet methodically defined criteria. These observations are then kept track of as incidents, which are then used to solve practical problems

Psychologist John Flanagan first introduced use of critical incident during world war Ii while aiming to evaluate air force crew after a successful mission.

WHEN DOES CIT USED?

PATIENTS SAFETY

SECURITY

INFORMATION

FINANCIAL AFFAIRS

REFLECT ON THE EVENT Gibbs’ reflective cycle encourages you to think systematically about the phases of an experience or activity, and you should use all the headings to structure your reflection.

ADVANTAGES Flexible method that can be used to improve multi-user systems. Data is collected from the respondent's perspective and in his or her own words. Identifies even rare events that might be missed by other methods which only focus on common and everyday events. Inexpensive and provides rich information. Can be applied using questionnaires or interviews. Easy to understand.

DISADVANTAGES Since critical incidents often rely on memory, incidents may be imprecise or may even go unreported. The method has a built-in bias towards incidents that happened recently, since these are easier to recall. Respondents may not be accustomed to or willing to take the time to tell (or write) a complete story when describing a critical incident. Since this method is based on incidents it does not say anything about the everyday situation so it is not very representative.