Critical Incident Questionnaire

Example

Please take about 5 minutes to respond anonymously to each of the questions below about
tonight's class. Using carbon paper, make one copy for yourself and put the other by the door as you leave. I'll digest the responses, report back to you next week about them, and try to make changes that address your responses.

1. What incident/comment/reaction/quote stands out from tonight's class?

2. At what moment did you feel most:
a. engaged with what was happening?

b. distanced from what was happening?

3. What action that anyone (teacher or student) took did you find:
a. most helpful or affirming?

b. most puzzling or confusing?

4 (Optional). Other comments?

Rationale

The Critical Incident Questionnaire is adapted from Brookfield (1995, 115). The five minute limit means that: a. this feedback can be fitted in to almost any session; and b. each person's responses are necessarily partial -- there is no pressure to sum up the whole experience.

The sequence of questions above borrows from the ORID process of the Institute for Cultural Affairs, which moves from the Objective (concrete things, actually observable by all), through Reflective (associations and feelings) and Interpretive (meaning and significance) to Decisional (implications for the future).

The instructor or session leader can collate the responses onto a single sheet (using check marks to indicate repeats of similar responses) and annotate the results, e.g., highlighting repeated responses, linking items in tension (i.e., when respondents said opposite things), summarizing a manageable subset of issues to address next time. This compilation can be scanned and sent by email with a cover note or distributed the next session with a short recap of the highlights.

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Another example, for mid-way during a semester

1. What concrete incidents/comments/reactions in tonight's class caught your attention?

2a. What excited you?

b. What frustrated you?

3a. What trends do you see emerging in the classes?

b. What are the implications of these for your learning and thinking?

4a. What might be your next steps as a learner-participant in this course?

b. What support would you like in taking those steps?

Reference

Brookfield, S. D. (1995). Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers