Managing perturbations during handover meetings: a joint activity framework

Aim To document the prevalence of perturbations of handover meetings and understand how nurses manage temporal, physical and social meeting boundaries in response to perturbations. Background Handovers are joint activities performed collaboratively by participating nurses. Perturbations of handover are frequent and may potentially threaten continuity of care. Design We observed and videotaped handovers during five successive days in four nursing care units in two Swiss hospitals in 2009. Methods Videorecordings were transcribed. All perturbations during the handovers were noted. We performed content analysis of the sources of perturbations from the notes and interactional micro-analyses of handover interactions based on video and transcripts. Results Nurses are the most frequent sources of perturbations during handovers. Perturbations are collaboratively managed. A tacit division of labour is enacted via multimodal communication strategies, whereby perturbations are dealt with using both linguistic and bodily signals

The interactive shaping of social learning in transmission chains.

International audienceThis study investigated the social transmission of memories and skills collected from a collaborative cooking task (ravioli-making) and across transmission chains. The transmission over three generations of pairs of participants occurred under two conditions. In the interactive condition, transmissions over generations occurred in face-to-face conversations, whereas in the non-interactive condition, generations video-recorded their instructions to the next generations. We analyzed the effects of verbal and embodied features of informational transfer on task performance. Our results show that performances improved over generations regardless of interactivity. In the discussion we suggest that tools (like cooking utensils) may have operated as cultural affordances encapsulating and transmitting important cultural knowledge for the successful completion of the task

Passing-by 'Ca va?' checks in clinic corridors

We have conducted a video-based field study on work interactions between staff members in the corridors of a hospital outpatient clinic in the French-speaking part of Switzerland. In this paper, we examine a specific mobile interactional configuration: passing-by interactions in which staff members get involved as they walk following close and parallel trajectories going in opposite directions. We also examine a specific conversational activity performed in the corridors: checks – introduced by the French expression “Ça va?” (Going okay?) – with which one staff member verifies that the situation of a colleague conforms to a routine state of affairs. Adopting the approaches of multimodal and conversation analysis, we point out features of the interactional configuration and the conversational activity under consideration that participants combine in some excerpts analyzed in the paper. Passing-by checks are practically accomplished, on the spot, through the sequential, embodied and embedded conduct of the staff members. We identify resources involved in building close but non- convergent trajectories, limiting interactional involvement, and coordinating talk and walk for a fleeting co-presence. The article contributes to the study of “on-the-move” contingent interactions as they happen in hospital corridors

Cohort Differences in Personal Goals and Life Satisfaction in Young Adulthood: Evidence for Historical Shifts in Developmental Tasks

This study investigated the influence of changing socio-historical conditions on personal goals in young adulthood. It was hypothesized that socio-historical changes related to individualization have resulted in shifts in goal pursuit. Participants from three birth cohorts reconstructed their important goals when they were 20years old. Members of the oldest cohort were born between 1920 and 1925. Members of the middle cohort were born between 1945 and 1950. Members of the youngest cohort were born between 1970 and 1975. Goal content, the degree to which goals were perceived as being shared by members of the same cohort (social sharedness), perceived control over goal attainment, success in attainment, and life satisfaction at age 25 were measured in a retrospective study. Results show consistent shifts over time. Whereas members of older cohorts mentioned goals related to classical developmental tasks, members of younger cohorts mentioned more individualistic, self-related goals and goals related to education. The processes through which goal pursuit influenced life satisfaction also changed. Perceived social sharedness of goals was a direct predictor of life satisfaction for the oldest cohort. For the younger cohorts, perceived control over goal attainment influenced success which in turn influenced life satisfaction. These changes support the contention that developmental tasks and processes are historically varian