The aim of the study was to identify situation assessment and decision making strategies in emergency medical services physicians and to determine whether their distribution is associated with routine and non-routine situations. The research sample included 15 physicians, who were interviewed about routine and non-routine situations from their practice. The interviews about non-routine situations were conducted using the Critical Decision Method, and its adapted version was created for the purpose of conducting the interviews about routine situations. Generally, qualitative analysis showed that intuitive strategies were most frequently used in situation assessment and decision making but they occurred more in routine situations, by contrast, deliberative strategies were used more in non-routine situations. These findings were supported by statistical tests suggesting that physicians were more likely to change strategies with respect to situational demands.
The aim of the present paper is to introduce how to analyse the qualitative data from the Critical Decision Method. At first, characterizing the method provides the meaningful introduction into the issue. This method used in naturalistic decision making research is one of the cognitive task analysis methods, it is based on the retrospective semistructured interview about critical incident from the work and it may be applied in various domains such as emergency services, military, transport, sport or industry. Researchers can make two types of methodological adaptation. Within-method adaptations modify the way of conducting the interviews and cross-method adaptations combine this method with other related methods. There are many decsriptions of conducting the interview, but the descriptions how the data should be analysed are rare. Some researchers use conventional approaches like content analysis, grounded theory or individual procedures with reference to the objectives of research project. Wong (2004) describes two approaches to data analysis proposed for this method of data collection, which are described and reviewed in the details. They enable systematic work with a large amount of data. The structured approach organizes the data according to an a priori analysis framework and it is suitable for clearly defined object of research. Each incident is studied separately. At first, the decision chart showing the main decision points and then the incident summary are made. These decision points are used to identify the relevant statements from the transcript, which are analysed in terms of the Recognition-Primed Decision Model. Finally, the results from all the analysed incidents are integrated. The limitation of the structured approach is it may not reveal some interesting concepts. The emergent themes approach helps to identify these concepts while maintaining a systematic framework for analysis and it is used for exploratory research design. It is based on the grounded theory which it shares with only that it enables the concepts to emerge themselves. All incident are analysed at the same time. At the beginning of the procedure it is necessary to find broad themes and within them to identify specific themes with relevant excerpts from the transcripts, which are then decomposed according to the structure describing the decision making process. In the final stage the narratives are written on the base of the information synthesis. A disadvantage of this data analysis can be greater difficulty, especially for inexperienced qualitative researchers. Obviously, the findings from both approaches should be used to facilitate the nature of the cognitive work. Recommendation are given in the conclusion.
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