Learning From and Emotional States in Error Situations in the Workplace: An Expanded Replication Study

• In Event: 52.083 - Roundtable Session 19
  In Roundtable Session: 52.083-9 - Error Culture and Corporate Climate: Dealing With Errors and Near Misses at Work

Abstract

Objective and theoretical framework

Errors are defined as the avoidable non-attainment of a goal (Zapf & Reason, 1994). Despite possible negative consequences such as economic costs, errors are also considered a powerful source for learning at work. However, regarding the above definition of errors as an avoidable non-attainment of goal, errors typically trigger negative emotions (Rausch, 2012), especially if there is a negative error culture (Harteis & Bauer, 2014). In coping with error situations, Zhao et al. (2014) distinguish emotion-focused and problem-focused coping but only the latter is supposed to foster learning from errors.

Methods

In an empirical study we investigated parts of the framework introduced by Zhao et al. (2014) and the proposed interrelations between emotions, interactions, coping strategies, and learning from errors in the workplace. We used the diary method (Ohly et al., 2010) to gain insight into the mechanisms of learning from errors in the workplace. Twenty-two young employees in commercial, IT or design departments participated in the study and collected a total of 99 error situations. Each diary entry required a description of the underlying task as well as the completion of several standardized items regarding characteristics of the task, the error, error detection, attribution, emotions, coping approaches, and learning. For measuring emotional states, we used a standardized tool that we refer to as circumplex item of emotional states. The item format follows typical circumplex models of emotions in that several emotional states are arranged according to two axes—valence (positive vs. negative) and arousal (active vs. passive). The participants chose between one and up to three out of eight emotional states and indicated the intensity on a scale from ‘a little’ [=1] to ‘very’ [=3] (Rausch, 2014). In 91 out of 99 error situations, the error resulted in negative emotions of varying degree, of which shame was the most intense. On a Likert-scale from 1 = learned nothing at all to 6 = learned very much from this error, the average score was 3.44. As hypothesized, negative emotions correlated with emotion-focused coping while only problem-focused coping correlated with the perceived learning from an error (Rausch et al., 2016). However, some questions remained unanswered. Particularly, the position of the reported emotional states was unclear, since emotional states might vary significantly in the course of an error situation depending on how a situation develops.

Data sources

Thus, in a replication study, we decided to measure emotional states twice during each error situation. The participants of the replication study had to fill in the circumplex item of emotional states to indicate their emotions directly after error detection and again, after they had reported on their coping activities (emotion-focused vs. problem-focused coping). Twenty-eight students of an apprenticeship program within the German dual system of vocational education and training (VET) participated in this study. In addition to a replication of most of the results of the first study, the expanded diary design allows for a more detailed analysis of the role of emotions in learning from errors in the workplace.

Author

• Andreas Rausch, University of Mannheim