or more sessions, under the form of role-play in micro-counselling or in the analysis of
cognitive manifestations.
According to the source, critical incidents are divided into the following typological
variants:
- autobiographical incidents (the most frequent);
- incidents derived from other people’s experience, or narrated.
Autobiographical incidents can be divided, according to the level of depth, into:
- incidents that are easy to remember and relate, despite the long time elapsed
from the moment of occurrence. The characteristics that justify them being
stored are the special emotional load and/or permanence of their technical
relevance (such as personal solutions to apply in case of professional doubt); - incidents forgotten instantaneously because of their superficiality, or because
of the mental prejudice they would bring if kept at the conscious level.
Drawing their inspiration from the traditional education system, Corsini and Howard
recommend that teachers get used to the critical incident technique through a four-entry
protocol:
I. Read a report of critical incident and try to formulate answers to the
questions below before reading the comments of the subject / publisher:
a. Describe the problem presented by the subject, by facts and
perceptions.
b. How would you react in such a situation, with your current
knowledge?
c. How does the subject see the problem?
d. Compare your analysis with that of the subject. What is your
understanding of the teacher’s role and of the psychological and/or
philosophical guidance? If they are different from those of the subject,
say in what way.
II. Go through the comments made by consultants and then express your opinion
on the following aspects:
a. How does each of the consultants see the problem^1?
b. What frame of reference does each consultant have (being aware of
their psychological and/or philosophical guidance, their conception of
the teacher’s role and the aims of the school)?
c. What common declarations are there in the analyses of the two or
more consultants?(^1) Authors denominate by „consultants” the specialists who are engaged by an institution to solve the case.