José Miguez

Using NVivo to assess a program of goal-corrected empathic attunement skills: a case study in the context of higher education

This paper focuses on the use of NVivo10 in the process of assessing a developmental program in goal-corrected emphatic attunement skills in the context of a psychology master’s program course. The authors present the way the software supported this work and discuss how it enabled a process of moving closer to and distancing themselves from the data. The possibility to analyse data in different perspectives—cross-sectional and longitudinal—is also discussed, using qualitative research and analysing different groups of participants (cases) and different years of the program as the project research questions evolved.

The “we” and the “others” in an interprofessional surgical context: Findings from a Portuguese study

The social identity of an individual is defined by the recognition they make which belongs to a particular group (Tajfel, 1984). In this sense, will doctors and nurses, when together in the surgical team, recognize themselves as its members, thus leaving the background identities associated with their own professions? Using social identity theory of Tajfel (1984), this study explored the extent that profession-specific identity, present in the surgical team, acting as a barrier to a shared team identity. A case study design was adopted, and structured interviews were gathered from 20 clinicians based in a surgical unit in a single Portuguese hospital. The results indicated that the profession-specific identifies acted as a barrier to the surgical team identity as the participants defined themselves as its members of their profession, and not as surgical team members. Therefore, based on the results of this small study, there is a tendency of surgical clinicians to maintain the distinction between “us” (their own profession) and “others” (the other individuals in the surgical team).

Building a Relationship with the Supervisor: An Exploratory Study

There is little knowledge regarding how the relationship between supervisors and subordinates is built. This study focuses on that process, according to the subordinates’ perspective—cognitions, behaviours and emotions. We conducted a qualitative study, gathering data from 12 subordinates using the Critical Incident Technique. Results show there are four types of supervisors’ behaviours that influence the process of building a relationship with the subordinate, including caregiving and fight (the two most stressed). The supervisors’ caregiving behaviour is associated with the subordinates’ positive emotion and careseeking behaviour. On the other hand, supervisor’s fight behaviours are associated with negative emotions and the activation of the subordinate’s self defence system. Consistently, we see that the first event that impacted the relationship were events where the supervisor had a caregiving or fight behaviour. It’s important that supervisors understand the impact of their dominant behaviours particularly at the early stages of the relationship.