Browsing by Subject "mistake"

The purpose of this thesis was to describe mistakes occurring in daycare and the emotions they evoke, as well as how these mistakes are reported to outsiders. Mistakes occurring at work have raised internationally steady amounts of attention throughout the entire 2000s. Earlier studies have mainly focused on the best ways to avoid mistakes or to learn from them, as well as on factors that predispose to mistakes and failures. However, there are very few Finnish studies on this topic. Additionally, earlier studies have mainly ignored the individual view; thoughts and emotions in a situation where a worker makes a mistake. This thesis investigates the types of narratives told about mistakes. Further, the emotions perceivable in these stories are mapped together with how these narratives reflect the thoughts of alternatives to reality. In research publications, the latter is called counterfactual thinking. The material was collected and analysed using a narrative research method. For this thesis, six former or present daycare workers were interviewed, each of them twice. The first interview was a narrative one, and the second one a semi-structured one. The actual material comprised 18 narratives, each one describing a particular situation where a mistake was made by the interviewee or his or her coworker. Narrative analysis was used to analyse various reporting styles, the emotional expressions used in them and the counterfactual thinking. Through reporting styles and counterfactual thinking it was possible to detect five different types of narratives the daycare workers used for reporting mistakes. These types of narratives were qualitatively different depending on whether the reported mistake was made by the person himself or herself or by a coworker. The types of narratives were judgmental, evasive, learning, polishing and what if reports.