Question

Create 15 open-ended critical incident interview questions using CTI methodology described in Using the Critical Incident Technique in Counselling Psychology Research," by Butterfield, Borgen, Maglio, and Amundson, from the Canadian Journal of Counselling (2009).

Ask the interviewee about specific events that their boss handled well or didn’t handle well because they were stressed out, how their boss handles stress in general, whether the stress trickled down to the employee level, what effect their boss’s stress levels had on the interviewee, etc.

ask your interviewees a final question regarding what conclusions they came to regarding good/bad leadership qualities as a result of the incidents they described.

Answer 1

Note: This response is in UK English, please paste the response to MS Word and you should be able to spot discrepancies easily. You may elaborate the answer based on personal views or your classwork if necessary. Also, you have typed “CTI” in the question above but, I assume you mean “CIT” since that is the subject matter of your question and “CTI” is an unrelated concept.

(Answer) In Butterfield’s paper about Critical Incident Technique, he describes how the evolution of qualitative research has led to the increase in typed of research methodologies over the years. In the paper, it is stated that the purpose of the CTI methodology is to not only pinpoint the main cause of an incident but, also highlight the many turning points that lead to a particular occurrence. Based on this idea and the methodology in the paper, the 15 questions are as follows:

Frame of Reference:

1. What are the five attributes of an ideal boss?
2. What are the 5 attributes of a terrible boss?
3. What qualities of the ideal boss does your current boss have?
4. What qualities of a terrible boss does your current boss have?
5. Would you say that your current boss has the potential to be an ideal or a terrible boss?

Forming categories that emerge from the data:

1. Is your boss an active leader?
2. Does your boss prefer to delegate?
3. Does your boss manage pressure situations patiently?
4. Does your boss handle employees poorly on a tough day at work?
5. Does the boss create an overall positive or negative vibe at work?

Determining the specificity or generality of categories:

1. Does your boss choose to micro-manage or does he allow employees to handle the minor issues?
2. Does your boss delegate his/ her own duties or only duties that were meant for employees or both?
3. Does your boss ignore the small pressures and only act up for bigger problems or does he/ she poorly handle all types of pressure?
4. Does your boss cause great stress to the employees on a tough day or just a little manageable extra work?
5. Are there specific occasions when your boss creates an extremely positive and or negative vibe?