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ROLE PLAY
© LOUIS COHEN, LAWRENCE
MANION & KEITH MORRISON
STRUCTURE OF THE CHAPTER
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What is role play?
Why use role play in research?
Issues to be aware of when using role-play
Role-play as a research method
How does it work?
Important strategies for successful role-play
Three examples of research using role-play
WHAT IS ROLE PLAY
• A ‘spontaneous, dramatic, creative teaching
strategy in which individuals overtly and
consciously assume the roles of others’ (Sellers,
2002)
• Role play is an effective strategy for learning
because it forces participants to think about the
person whose role is being assumed, is connected
to real-life situations, and promotes active, personal
involvement in learning.
• Based on role taking, role making and role
negotiation: useful for accessing and exploring
people’s behaviour and responses to situations and
stimuli in a diverse range of contexts and settings.
WHAT IS ROLE PLAY
• Working in drama involves stepping into an
imagined world, a fictional reality, and in order to
make this imaginary world more meaningful and
purposeful in an educational research context, it
must have aspects of the real world in it.
• Relationships are central:
– between people
– people and ideas
– between people and the environment
STAGES IN ROLE PLAY
• Three stages:
– Briefing
– Acting
– Debriefing
THE EDUCATIONAL USE OF DRAMA
• People involved in active role taking, where their
attitude to the situation, not their ability to portray a
character, is the chief concern.
• The role-play must be lived at life-rate (i.e. in that
moment).
• The role-play must aim to create a living picture of
life, which provides a learning opportunity for the
participant as much as for any onlookers, including
the researcher.
• Role-play is improvisational in nature and
increasingly unscripted.
WHY USE ROLE-PLAY IN RESEARCH?
• To help participants consider ideas from
different perspectives, to think of possibilities.
• To experience how people behave in particular
circumstances by exploring a variety of social
situations and social interactions.
• To explore a range of human feelings and
responses to situations.
• To explore choices and moral dilemmas
• To make decisions which are tested out in the
role-play and later reflected on.
WHY USE ROLE-PLAY IN RESEARCH?
• To develop a sense of responsibility and
confidence as decision makers and problem
solvers.
• To develop personal creativity.
• To improve the social health of a group and
foster improved relationships with peers or
colleagues.
• To interact with peers and learn to compromise
in order to sustain and develop activities.
• To extend, enrich and prompt the use of
authentic language use in simulated real life
contexts.
WHY USE ROLE-PLAY IN RESEARCH?
• To explore the skills and processes involved in
conflict, negotiation and resolution of
difficulties and problems in their environment.
• To develop agency and an increased
awareness of self.
• To improve visual and spatial skills through
responding to a range of stimuli and situations.
• Role-play operates in a ‘no-penalty zone’,
where people are freer to explore and try out a
range of solutions to problems and issues,
without having to worry about the outcome.
ISSUES TO BE AWARE OF WHEN
USING ROLE-PLAY
• Ethical issues
– Informed consent
– Overt/covert research
– Non-maleficence (do no harm) and beneficence
– Vulnerability and dignity of participants
• The researcher must act responsibly.
• Draw the line between illusion and reality,
but make sure that there is some reality in
the illusion.
CONDUCTING ROLE-PLAY
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Set the scene
Narrate the dramatic frame
Provide a ‘second dimension’ for each role
Outline the dilemma
Dramatic tension
Objective of each participant
Constraint
Hidden objectives
ROLE-PLAY AS A RESEARCH METHOD
• Explore the principles of human behaviour in real
life settings, lived at life-pace;
• Access and assess how people make sense of
their lives, and the structures of the natural
world;
• Prioritize the process of engagement;
• Explore different points of view, and forge
different types of knowledge;
• Adopt multiple viewing points within a data set;
• Study multi-level communication;
ROLE-PLAY AS A RESEARCH METHOD
• Identify and explore the development and
manifestation of participants’ attitudes, decisions,
strategies, values, thinking skills, and emotions;
• Shift and alter variables as the research unfolds,
to explore subtleties and nuances in human
interactions and situations;
• provide planned or spontaneous prompts and
stimuli to participants;
• Engage with a fully diverse research population
through an inclusive method to explore and
access relevant data;
ROLE-PLAY AS A RESEARCH METHOD
• Explore meanings and the ways in which people
understand things;
• Investigate patterns of behaviour;
• Provide a distancing lens through which to
interpret material;
• Examine ready-made, visually and narratively rich
research data, which evoke layers of meaning
through reflection;
• Capture visual data;
• Involve participants as co-researchers;
• Engage in meaningful interaction with participants.
HOW DOES ROLE-PLAY WORK?
• Brief participants on:
– The purpose of taking on the role
– The status or level of power of the role
– The attitude of the role
– The participant’s motivation in the role-play
• A loosely structured role-play places more demands
on participants, and thus requires greater preparation.
• The effectiveness of role play is dependent on careful
planning and the educator’s ability to convey
confidence to participants that role play can be a
valuable strategy.
IMPORTANT STRATEGIES FOR
SUCCESSFUL ROLE-PLAY
• Inserting dramatic tension and awakening
participants’ self-spectator
• Protection into (not ‘from’) role and protection into
emotion
• Ensure adequate preparation
• Attention to detail and practicalities