Abstracts - Earli

Learning from critical incidents in the supervision of researchMichael Christie, Chalmers, SwedenArjan Snijder, Astra Zeneca, SwedenTom Adawi, Chalmers, SwedenIn this paper the authors report on a piece of action research (using the critical incident technique)in the area of PhD supervision. Twenty eight supervisors, most of whom are co-supervisors, wereinstructed in critical incident technique (Flannagan, 1954) and then asked to write incidents fromtheir supervision experience. The incidents could be about mundane matters but they becamecritical, in the meaning of this technique, when they were analysed or ‘critiqued’. The incidents wecollected were critiqued in four stages. First, by the individual authors who wrote down their ownanalytical reflection of the incident. Second by focus groups consisting of five authors per group.Third, by a plenary session that discussed the reports from each group; and finally, by theresearchers, who accessed the written incidents and individual reflections as well as the plenarydiscussion and summaries from the focus groups. The incidents were classified according to typeand their actual and potential consequences examined. Possible assumptions underpinning theincidents were also analysed individually, in focus groups and by the researchers. Our aim was toheighten the supervisors’ awareness of issues in supervision and to give them a tool for futurereflection and analysis. Many of the incidents were problematic even though the informants hadbeen asked to simply write down an event they remembered as a supervisor or as a former PhDstudent. Issues and conflicts relating to co-supervision were a dominant theme. Supervisors werehelped via this action research to find ways of preventing or overcoming this and other types ofconflict. One recommendation from our study was that a transparent structure and set of rulesgoverning co-supervision be defined and implemented. Reference: Flannagan, J (1954). ‘Thecritical incident technique’ in the Psychological Bulletin, volume 51.Schoolteacher meetings and analysis of talkInger Österlund, Åbo Akademi University, FinlandPrevious researches show that teacher collaboration promotes success in students’ performance.Nevertheless the topic has not been of much interest in educational research. Teacher collaborationarises naturally in situations of problems or crisis but after the situation is solved the workcontinues as before. The point of intersection between different teaching subjects and the sharededucational practice point out teacher collaboration. This paper describes empirical results that arebased on analysis of video tapes from schoolteachers’ meetings. The aim is to throw light on stylesof talk and investigate the impact of different subjects. The study highlights the question; is there apattern in teachers’ talk with each other that either develop or prevent collaboration? The gapbetween two approaches, a socio cultural perspective (Bourdieuan) and a constructivist (Bergerand Luckman), is filled with interactional sociolinguistic by John Gumperz. The analysis usescontextualisation cues and takes a hearer’s perspective. The preliminary results are described bysequences of critical situations. A preliminary finding is that small teacher meetings with 4-5teachers including the principal provide more social interaction and talk at meetings than a largergroup of teachers. An overall purpose of the research is to underline the potential that each teacherhas as a human capital. Teachers’ recognition of different perceptions in the shared educationalpractice extends the collegiality in an open collaborative culture. Certain phenomena or pattern oftalk draw attention to parts that are not noticed which develop a further discussion about a moreextended teacher collegiality, an open collaborative culture and recognition of pluralism ineducational leadership.– 676 –