William A. Borgen

Fifty years of the critical incident technique: 1954-2004 and beyond

It has now been 50 years since Flanagan (1954) published his classic article on the critical incident technique (CIT) - a qualitative research method that is still widely used today. This article reviews the origin and evolution of the CIT during the past 50 years, discusses CIT’s place within the qualitative research tradition, examines the robustness of the method, and offers some recommendations for using the CIT as we look forward to its next 50 years of use. The focus of this article is primarily on the use of the CIT in counselling psychology, although other disciplines are touched upon.

Coming Home: A Group-Based Approach for Assisting Military Veterans in Transition

This study is an evaluation of the Veterans Transition Program, a residential, group-based program designed to assist the transition of military personnel back into Canadian society by aiding with their personal and career readjustment. Participants in the program included 18 male soldiers who experienced varying degrees of combat-related trauma. Standard measures of traumatic stress symptoms, depression, and self-esteem were administered to the participants in addition to participant interviews. The measures were administered before, immediately after, and 3 months post-program. Post-program research interviews were conducted and analyzed using the Critical Incident Technique research approach. An overview of the program is presented, along with research results and recommendations to practitioners working with soldiers experiencing trauma-related stress reactions.

Career decision-making of high school students in Kenya

The aim of this study was to identify importantfactors that influence career decision‐making of highschool students in Kenya. The study indicates thatrural students tend to seek help from parents andteachers more than urban students, and that parents,more than career teachers, play a major role in thecareer decision-making of students. Findings alsoindicate that gender, self‐concept and vocationalstereotyping are among the major factors thatinfluence career decisions of high school students inKenya.

Career Perceptions of Children and Adolescents.

Abstract This study investigated developmental patterns in the way in which students in Grades 5 through 12 describe five common occupations. A total of 544 students responded to five occupational titles with or without an accompanying occupational description. The responses were rated in nine catagories: behavior, interests, outcomes, social relevance, career progress, self-evaluation, occupational evaluation, choice, and misinformation. Results indicated that provision of an occupational description influenced responses, particularly at lower grade levels. Developmental patterns also evident in the results indicated that students in lower grades responded more frequently in the behavior category, whereas students in higher grades focused more on interests, career progress, and outcomes.

A culturally embedded model for effective intercultural communication

The goal of this paper is to outline a model of intercultural communication that provides a theoretically rigorous foundation for the training of intercultural workers. This model exists, as any does in a vast field of multiple spatial and temporal, social and political contexts. Primary among those is the increasing migration of people across and into new cultural settings. This can precipitate a range of results from increased interpersonal stress through to an awareness of an increase in the richness of experience with a culturally diverse context. The model presented in this article has been developed in response to what has been perceived as an urgent need to improve intercultural relations in various national and local institutions.

Shifting economic boundaries in Europe and North America: Implications for counseling

In Europe and in North America, the creation of new economic alliances that are ‘boundary free’ for corporations and workers in the nations involved will stimulate new needs for counseling. Planning for counseling to deal with the individual needs caused by economic boundary shifting should encompass two broad themes: (1) the likely psychological dynamics of boundary changing; and (2) the possible effects of boundary changing on the structure and choice of and planning for occupations.As economic structures change, counselors and counseling will need to address the resulting transformations of the psychological environments, the sets of behavioral expectations, the national mythologies and social metaphors in which persons negotiate their identities, find their sources of self-validation and pursue a career. The counselors will need to be prepared to deal with the stresses and anxieties that accompany such change as well as the threats to cultural identity that accompany worker migration from nations of origin. Assisting workers to deal with evolving skill requirements from new technologies, cultural transitions, retraining, underemployment, and unemployment will become increasingly important aspects of the counselors agenda.

Self-confidence and the re-entry experience for North American women

Seven themes emerged in a review of the literatureregarding the experience of North American re-entrywomen. The two most salient appeared to be linked tothe concept of transitions in adulthood and issuesrelated to self-confidence. The other five themes,sex-role stereotyping, discrimination, diverse careerpatterns, multiple roles, and the search for meaning,related to issues that are important in the careerdevelopment of women. These themes are discussed interms of their potential impact on women returning towork or to school. The article concludes withsuggestions for counselling, further research, andtheory development that more accurately reflects theexperience of women.

Self-awareness of Dual Roles When Using the CIT (Critical Incident Technique): Opening Pandora's Box?

The issue of conducting ethical research that considers the wider impact on the participant is not a new idea in academia. It is the constant “elephant in the room” that exists for any researcher who works with people and this is accentuated when working with vulnerable populations. This article is written as a cautionary note and offers an ethical and moral means of conducting research in the moral quagmire of honoring people’s stories, words, behaviors and thoughts. The purpose is for the researcher to note the possible impact that the telling of such stories may have not just on the storyteller, but also on the listener. It is meant to serve as one of the ways to minimize harm to participants and researchers, and maximize the potential of the widely used qualitative research tool and the CIT (critical incident technique). Following in the footsteps of the pilot study by Butterfield, Borgen, Maglio, and Amundsen (2009) regarding the impact of a qualitative research interview on participants, combined with previous post-modern analyses, it is clear that any type of research can have an impact on participants. This article positions itself as a means of advocating that a researcher working with potentially vulnerable populations should wear “dual hats” when conducting research and, at all times, should be aware of the impact upon participants during the research process. Further, it explores the need to the potential impact first and foremost in the mind of the researcher prior to embarking upon any research with vulnerable and special populations.

Counseling and the Role of Personality and Intelligence

It is our intent in this chapter to highlight certain issues pertaining to the areas of personality, intelligence, and environment that are currently of interest in the field of counseling. Vocational development serves as an example of a central counseling focus that illustrates concerns that apply to many counseling endeavors. In particular this discussion centers around the experiences of young individuals as they make their way into the vocational context. Recent studies have demonstrated that this transition period is a time of great flux in an individual’s life, and that a successful passage has profound implications for well-being (Amundson, Borgen, & Tench, 1993; Borgen, Amundson, & Tench, 1993; Furnham, 1985; Tiggeman & Winefield, 1984; Warr, Jackson, and Banks, 1982).

Orienting Educators to Contemporary Ideas for Career Counseling: An Illustrative Example

The context in which career decision-making is being conducted is radically different from what it was in 1911 when Frank Parsons began his work with youth in the United States. The current context of evolving and escalating social and economic change in many countries of the world presents a challenge to educators regarding how best to prepare young people to move forward with their lives in a positive way. Studies involving young people in developing and developed countries have identified their needs pertaining to career guidance and counseling, along with the types of assistance that they would find helpful. The challenge across all countries is that as educators we are often in the situation of preparing young people with current educational programs for jobs that have not yet been created using technologies that have yet to be developed.