WWYD Critical Incidents¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · 4 claims (4 for) · 13 studies (5 causal, 4 quant-synthesis, 2 theoretical, 1 review, 1 associational), q2–q4 · 4 of 13 report an effect size

Description¶

Learners are presented with mini case studies that feature a conflict or misunderstanding and are asked, "What would you do if you were person X/person Y?" Each learner commits to an interpretation and a course of action from a specific role's viewpoint, then compares responses in discussion. The strategy converts a Case Study into a forced decision point, which surfaces prior assumptions and makes disagreement between learners visible and discussable.

Design Implications¶

The strategy works because committing to a decision before instruction creates the conditions for productive failure and self-explanation: learners who first generate their own resolution process expert feedback and alternative framings more deeply than learners who receive the analysis passively Productive failure improves conceptual learning. [+M] Self-explanation improves conceptual understanding. [+M]. Asking the WWYD question from both parties' perspectives builds in contrasting cases, which supports abstraction of the underlying principle rather than memorization of one resolution Multiple contrasting cases support abstraction. [+M].

Context¶

Requirements¶

• A short, realistic incident (one to two paragraphs) with genuine ambiguity — no obviously correct answer
• A decision prompt addressed to each role in the conflict, requiring a committed response before discussion
• Facilitated Class Discussion that compares responses across roles and surfaces the reasoning behind them
• Instructor knowledge of the domain well enough to probe shallow or simplistic resolutions

Constraints¶

• Learners without relevant domain or professional experience often produce simplistic or generic resolutions [-M] — the discussion, not the initial response, carries the learning, so skipping facilitation collapses the activity
• Poorly chosen incidents with a single obvious answer reduce the activity to guessing the instructor's intent [~M]
• Group discussion can converge prematurely on the first confident answer unless the facilitator deliberately elicits minority and cross-role perspectives [-W]
• Learners from cultures where disagreeing publicly or speculating without authority is discouraged may not commit to a response without anonymous or written first-pass formats [~W]

Implementation Variability¶

• Written individual commitment (Individual Reflection) before Peer Discussion, to prevent anchoring on early speakers
• Act It Out / role-play enactment of the chosen resolutions, followed by debrief of consequences
• Anonymous polling or digital response tools for the first pass in large classes
• Sequencing multiple related incidents so learners revisit and revise their resolution framework across the term

Target Learners¶

• Professional and pre-professional learners (management, teaching, nursing, counseling) who will face interpersonal judgment calls Case-based learning improves exam performance. [+M]
• Learners with enough prior knowledge to generate a plausible response but not enough to resolve the conflict unaided — the productive-failure zone
• Less effective for complete novices, who lack the schema to interpret the incident meaningfully [~M]

Target Learning Goals¶

• Perspective-taking: constructing the goals, constraints, and perceptions of each party
• Judgment and decision-making under ambiguity (Decision-Making)
• Interpersonal and conflict-resolution skill through articulated reasoning and discussion
• Transfer of principles to authentic professional situations

Instructions¶

1. Select or write a one-paragraph incident with a genuine conflict and no obvious resolution; strip away details that reveal the "right" answer.
2. Have learners read the incident and individually commit in writing to "What would you do if you were X?" and "What would you do if you were Y?" (Individual Reflection).
3. Run Peer Discussion in small groups, requiring groups to identify at least one point where members chose differently and why.
4. Facilitate whole-class Class Discussion, contrasting resolutions across roles and probing the assumptions behind each.
5. Close with the expert or instructor framing: name the principles at stake and compare expert resolutions to learner proposals.
6. Optionally, have learners Act It Out their resolutions and debrief what changed when the scenario became interactive.

Related Strategies¶

• Structured case discussion — the same case material without the forced decision prompt; WWYD adds commitment before analysis
• Role-play — enactment variant of the same perspective-taking goal
• Jigsaw discussion — alternative structure for ensuring all perspectives are voiced
• Use experiential intercultural training methods such as simulations, role-playing and critical incidents to encounter perceptual and value differences

Examples¶

• Harvard Business School case method (https://www.hbs.edu/mba/academic-experience/Pages/the-hbs-case-method.aspx) — cold-called students must take a protagonist's position and defend a decision before the class dissects alternatives; the WWYD prompt is the entry move of each session.
• Nursing and medical ethics education — brief vignettes (e.g., a patient refusing treatment a family demands) with students answering from the nurse's, physician's, and family's perspectives before debrief.
• Teacher education (e.g., TeachLivE / Mursion simulations, https://mursion.com) — a classroom management incident is presented, candidates commit to a response, then rehearse it with simulated students.

Key Sources¶

• Flanagan, J. C. (1954). The critical incident technique. Psychological Bulletin, 51(4), 327–358. doi:10.1037/h0061470
• Thistlethwaite, J. E., Davies, D., Ekeocha, S., Kidd, J. M., MacDougall, C., Matthews, P., Purkis, J., & Clay, D. (2012). The effectiveness of case-based learning in health professional education. A BEME systematic review: BEME Guide No. 23. Medical Teacher, 34(6), e421–e444. doi:10.3109/0142159x.2012.680939
• Kapur, M. (2016). Examining productive failure, productive success, unproductive failure, and unproductive success in learning. Educational Psychologist, 51(2), 289–299. doi:10.1080/00461520.2016.1155457
• Kolodner, J. L. (1997). Educational implications of analogy: A view from case-based reasoning. American Psychologist, 52(1), 57–66. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.52.1.57