ROLE PLAY

DEFINITION
Role playing is an educational technique in which people
spontaneously act out problems of human relation and analyze
the enactment with the help of the other players and observers.

PURPOSE OF ROLE PLAY IN NURSING

To convey information
To develop specific skill like decision making and problem
solving skill
To develop situation for analysis
To prepare for meeting future situation
To develop understanding of point of view of others
Increasing their insight into typical way of dealing with them
To improve interpersonal relationship among learners.

PRINCIPLES OF ROLE PLAY

It is flexible
It should be stimulant to think and not an escape from the
discipline of learning.
It should not be rehearsed
Analysis and evaluation is essential to attain the maximum
learning benefits
It should be brief.

SETTING UP OF ROLE PLAYING

1. Problem should arise from the group and should be clear and
related to human relation situation that serves useful
purpose
2. Identify the character in the situation and ask for volunteers
to play this role. Select the person who is able to carry the
role effectively without threatened by it.
3. Participants should have clear understanding of the objective
and the character they are going to play. Each class member
select some role and identifies herself with it, listen and try
to anticipate what the person in the situation might say or
do.
4. At any point during a dramatization participants may holed a
short conference to clarify the problem understudy.
5. The length of role play will depend upon how long it take to
make the nursing situation clear and the student become
aware of feelings and thoughts of these in the actual
situations.
6. Ask the participants to place themselves in the position of
the character. Caution them not to express their own idea
and opinion.
7. Never rehearse the role playing. It should be played in
simple manner. The timing should not be more than 15
minutes.
8. Participants should hold short conference or discussion to
clarify the problem under the study. Constant effort should
be made to relate discussion to the problem and its purpose.
9. After the discussion teachers should conduct an evaluative
summary about the behavior observed which improve group
practice. Situation can be replayed using the recommended
changes regarding interaction or role reversal approach for
further study and evaluation of the group.

Phases or steps involves in Role Play

There are nice steps in any role play. They are :
1. Warming up the group :- Concerned with the identification
or introduction of the problem.
2. Selecting participants :- Concerned with the analysis of
roles and selection of the students for playing the specific
roles.
3. Set the stage :- Concerned with setting the line of action,
restating roles etc.
4. Preparation of observers :- Concerned with the
assignment of roles of observers to students who are not
acting and assigning them observation tasks and starting
what to look for.
5. Enactment : Actual role playing process.
6. Discussion and evaluation: Free discussion about quality
of roles, major focus of play.
7. Re-enactment :- concerned with re-enactment of the role
play in the light of modification made.
8. Re-discussion and Evaluation :- Review of roles leading to
conclusions.
9. Deriving Generalizations :- relate problem situation to real
experience and current problems.

ROLE OF A TEACHER IN ROLE PLAY OF TEACHING

To note individual student need by observing and analyzing.

Assist the student in meeting her own needs.
Encourage independent thinking and action
The teacher can correct the error and use the role play for
specific teaching on the subject.

VALUES OF ROLE PLAYING

1. There is emotional involvement as the actors try to feel the
character he/she is portraying and puts himself in that
persons character.
2. It is enjoying by people who do it.
3. It does not need equipment.
4. It is a method to involve a group through participation.
5. It can bring out data human behavior and human relations
which are not made available by other methods.
6. In role playing the student not only hears about a problem or
tells about it, he lives through it by acting it out.
7. Individuals may develop new skills for dealing with problems
in human relations.
8. Role playing can be tailored to fit the specific need and
situation of particular group that is using it.
9. It is a way of presenting human relations, problems. The
student can experiment with behavior, make mistake and try
new skills.
Effect of Role Play On the student
Role Playing helps the student to : Develop real communication skills in leadership, interviewing
and social interacting. E.g. how to lead a communication etc.
Develop sensitivity to anothers feelings by having the
opportunity to put oneself in anothers place and develop
emapthy and understanding.
Develop skill in group problems solving. E.g. the group works
as a whole to develop the problem of concern to the group.
To develop the situation , to identify issues and to come to
some mutual agreement.

 Develop ability to observe and analyze situations.

Practice selected behaviours in a real life situation without
the stress of making a mistake.

Points to be remember while doing Role Playing

o There should never one answer to a situation presented.
o The time of the play should be brief.
o Enough time should be allowed for discussion and analysis of
the situation.
o Evaluation concerns the teacher and participants through
discussion or follow-up as to specific individual behaviour or
group actiion.

STRENGTHS OF ROLE PLAY

Fig.1. strengths of role play

1. Provide immediate feedback

2. Involves comparing and contrasting positions taken on an
issue
3. Promotes lifelong learning
4. Facilitates expression of attitude and feeling
5. Provides opportunity to speculate on uncertainties
6. Develop sympathetic understandings
7. Involves direct experiential learning
8. Involves applying knowledge to solving problems
9. Demonstrate a practical integration of knowledge skills and
abilities
10.
Involves manipulating knowledge in exciting ways

11.
Facilitate learning across many years of curriculum
content
12.
Helps make abstract problem more concrete.

ADVANTAGES OF ROLE PLAY

It provides opportunity to the students to learn about a
subject from the inside. It gives them a chance to feel the
intensity of the situation by enacting it through role play.
Student drives useful real life experiences through playing
specific roles of the players or observers and in turn prepare
them for their activities.
It increase students interest , motivation and effects for the
learning about a subject or phenomenon.
LIMITATIONS OF ROLE PLAYING
It cannot be used successfully till the group understand and
accept it as method of learning.
The role playing excepts lot from the teachers ass she as to
create a problematic situation and draft role playing activities.
There is quite dearth of such capable trained teacher in that
situation we cannot desire good result.
It requires expert guidance and leadership.
RESEARCH EVIDENCE
1. Alan S. Bellack, et al, Role play test for assessing social skills,
Behavior Therapy, 1978, volume 9, issues 3, pages 448-461
This study was conducted to examine the validity of roleplay tests of social skills. Subjects in this study were psychiatric
patients. Experiment 1 examined the relationship between
specific response components on the Behavioral Assertiveness
Test-Revised (BAT-R) and mental health experts' ratings of overall

response effectiveness and quality. Multiple regression analyses

indicated that several of the response components, in
combination, were highly predictive of experts' judgments.
Regression patterns for positive nad negative assertion responses
differed substantially. Experiment 2 examined the correspondence
between responses on the BAT-R and two more natural situations:
structured interviews and treatment groups. Component
responses were highly correlated across BAT-R scenes. However,
responses on the BAT-R were not related to responses in the other
two situations. In contrast, responses in the other two situations
were highly inter correlated. Results were discussed in terms of
two aspects of BAT-R procedure: validity of the specific
measurements and external validity of the role-play strategy. The
results were also related to previous social skills research.

2. Lain, Claire, et al, use of simulated patient and role play in

communication skill training, Patient education and
counseling, july 2007, volume 67, issues 1-2, pages 13-20.
To assess whether the practice and rehearsal of
communication skills is likely to lead to better outcomes following
training, and whether the use of simulated patients in training is
likely to be superior to role-play in terms of communication skill
acquisition. The databases Medline, Amed, Cinahl, BNI, Embase,
Psychinfo and HMIC were searched for articles which compared
the use of simulated patients and/or role-play in training
healthcare practitioners in acquiring communication skills. Most
studies appear to indicate that outcomes are better in
communication skills training programs where skills practice has
taken place. However, a number of methodological weaknesses
make concrete conclusions difficult to draw. There was just one
study that directly compared the use of role-play with simulated
patients. This found no significant difference in outcomes
between the two methods. There is a need for more well-designed

studies that assess skill acquisition following the use of simulated

patients and/or role-play in a number of different settings.
Simulated patients and role-play are frequently used in teaching
communication skills worldwide. Given the expense of using
simulated patients, educators should be made aware of cheaper
alternatives that may be equally effective in facilitating the
acquisition of communication skills.

3. Wang, weiwen, et al, Improving Chinese nursing students'

communication skills by utilizing video-stimulated recall and
role-play case scenarios to introduce them to the SBAR
technique, Nurse education today, July 2015,volume 35,
issue 7, pages 881-887.
Effective communication among healthcare workers is
critically important for patient safety and quality care. The
purpose of this pilot study was to evaluate outcomes of a
workshop designed to teach Chinese nursing students to use the
SituationBackgroundAssessmentRecommendation (SBAR)
communication tool and examine their attitudes toward utilizing
SBAR as a communication tool. A convenience sample of 18
master's degree nursing students at a Chinese university was
introduced to SBAR through a workshop. The workshop combined
the SBAR tool, video-stimulated recall and role-play case
scenarios to illustrate potential positive and negative
communication-related patient outcomes. Students completed a
12-item questionnaire before and after participating in the
workshop. Four of the items examined the four elements of the
SBAR tool (situation, background, assessment, recommendation,
score range 020), and eight of the items evaluated students' selfperceived attitudes towards utilizing the SBAR tool in their clinical
practice (score range 040).Pre- and post-workshop scores on the
four elements of the SBAR tool demonstrate significant
improvement in knowledge of SBAR (14.0 2.9 vs. 16.6 2.2,

respectively; p = 0.009). Pre- and post-workshop scores on the

items testing students' self-perceived abilities also demonstrate
significant improvement (26.9 3.5 vs. 32.6 4.5, respectively;
p < 0.01) in using SBAR. Total scores increased significantly from
40.9 5.0 to 49.2 5.9 (p < 0.01). Moreover, 93.8% of the
students agreed and strongly agreed that they would use SBAR
during clinical practice. Participating in the SBAR workshop in
combination with video-stimulated recall and role-play case
scenarios significantly improved the Chinese nursing students'
knowledge of SBAR and their self-perceived attitudes towards
using SBAR tool. Future studies using a larger sample size and
longer post-workshop follow-up are needed to confirm the longterm benefits of the workshop.

4. Silverman, MJ, Effects of a single-session assertiveness music

therapy role playing protocol for psychiatric inpatients,
Journal of music therapy, September 2011, volume 48, issue
3, pages 370-394
The purpose of this study was to implement and measure the
effectiveness of a single-session assertiveness music therapy role
playing protocol for psychiatric inpatients. Participants (M = 133)
were randomly assigned by group to one of three conditions: (a)
Assertiveness Music Therapy, (b) No Music Assertiveness, or (c)
Music No Assertiveness. Participants in both assertiveness
conditions role played a number of different commonly occurring
scenarios at an inpatient psychiatric facility and in the community.
There were no significant between-group differences in posttest
quality of life, locus of control, or other subscales. However,
participants in both assertiveness conditions tended to have
slightly higher internal locus of control and overall quality of life
scores than participants in the music no assertiveness condition.
Additionally, the assertiveness music therapy condition had
higher attendance rates than the other conditions. A higher

percentage of participants from both the assertiveness music

therapy and music no assertiveness conditions indicated they
thought their session was the most helpful/therapeutic group
therapy session in which they had participated; this was not the
case for the assertiveness no music condition. Future research is
warranted to measure the effects of protocols that can help
psychiatric patients generalize skills learned in treatment.

5. Vincent B. Van Hasselt, et al, Applications in Hostage and

Crisis Negotiation Skills Training, behavior modification,
march 2008, volume 32, issue 2, pages 248-263.
Role playing has been a mainstay of behavioral
assessment for decades. In recent years, however, this analogue
strategy has also enjoyed widespread application in the field of
law enforcement. Most notably, role-play procedures have
become an integral component of assessment and training efforts
in hostage and crisis negotiation, which attempts to resolve highrisk and often volatile situations in a peaceful, nonviolent manner
when possible. The purpose of this paper is to (a) describe
development and validation of a role-play test specifically geared
toward law enforcement negotiators, (b) present different roleplay formats that have been incorporated in law enforcement
negotiation training, and (c) discuss limitations and considerations
in use of these instruments. Suggestions for directions that future
efforts in this area might take are offered. The heuristic value of
role playing in crisis management, counterterrorism, and
emergency and mass casualty disaster training exercises is also
underscored.

BIBLIOGRAPH

1. Basvanthappa, BT, Textbook of Nursing Education, Jaypee

Brothers, 2nd edition, Medical Publishers, New Delhi, 2009,
575-568
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/role-playing
3. https://powerpointpresentationon.blogspot.in/2013/09/ppton-role-playmethod-of-teaching.html