Critique of the critical incident technique

Abstract

The CIT is a practical and efficient methodology that encourages participants to tell their story; with happenings that are memorable events in participant' lives. It is a form of story-telling, as participants share their singular experience as a story to the researcher. It is a qualitative, systematic, open-ended technique for educing descriptive data from participants as well as being an effective naturalistic tool for focusing participant' on a specific event. The CIT is a user-friendly instrument that can foster reflection and promote personal expression. The development of the CIT to generate indicators of specific happenings relative to research questions demonstrates the technique's suppleness and emphasises the capability of this methodology in nursing research. As nurses learn more about this methodology and its application to the study of nurses and nursing care, they will begin to comprehend how simple and effortless this technique is to use. The CIT can be developed to conform to any area of nursing and provide a more comprehensive awareness of what nurses do and the needs of our clients. © 2006, SAGE Publications. All rights reserved.