RESEARCH METHOD COHEN ok

454 ROLE-PLAYING
Box 21.3
Critical factors in a role-play: smoking and young people
Roles involved:
Critical issues:
Key communication channels:
Young people, parents, teachers, doctors, youth leaders, shopkeeper, cigarette
manufacturer.
Responsibility for health, cost of illness, freedom of action, taxation revenue,
advertising, effects on others.
Advertisements, school contacts, family, friends.
Source:adaptedfromVanMents1983
to write their own. In practice, Van Ments
(1983) observes, most role-plays are written
for specific needs and with the intention of
fitting into a particular course programme.
Existing role-plays can, of course, be adapted by
teachers to their own particular circumstances
and needs. On balance it is probably better
to write the role-play oneself in order to
ensure that the background is familiar to the
intended participants; they can then see its
relevance to the specific problem that concern
them.
Running the role-play
The counsel of perfection is always to pilot test
the role-play material that one is going to use,
preferably with a similar audience. In reality, pilot
testing can be as time-consuming as the play
itself and may therefore be totally impracticable
given timetable pressures. But however difficult
the circumstances, any form of piloting, says Van
Ments (1983), is better than none at all, even if
it is simply a matter of talking procedures through
with one or two colleagues.
Once the materials are prepared, then the roleplay
follows its own sequence: introduction, warmup,
running and ending. One final word of caution.
It is particularly important to time the ending of
the role-play in such a way as to fit into the whole
programme. One method of ensuring this is to
write the mechanism for ending into the role-play
itself. Thus: ‘You must have reached agreement on
all five points before 11.30 a.m. when you have to
attend a meeting of the board of directors.’
Debriefing
Debriefing is more than simply checking that the
right lesson has been learnt and feeding this
information back to the teacher. Rather, Van
Ments (1983) reminds us, it is a two-way process,
during which the consequences of actions arising
in the role-play can be analysed and conclusions
drawn (as in the Milgram experiment). It is
at this point in the role-play sequence when
mistakes and misunderstandings can be rectified.
Most important of all, it is from well-conducted
debriefing sessions that the teacher can draw
out the implications of what the pupils have
been experiencing and can then plan the
continuation of their learning about the topic
at hand.
Follow-up
To conclude, Van Ments (1983) notes the
importance of the follow-up session in the
teacher’s planning of the ways in which the
role-play exercise will lead naturally into the
next learning activity. Thus, when the role-play
session has attempted to teach a skill or rehearse
anovelsituation,thenitmaybelogicaltorepeat
it until the requisite degree of competence has
been reached. Conversely, if the purpose of the
exercise has been to raise questions, then a followup
session should be arranged to answer them.
‘Whatever the objectives of using role-play, one
must always consider the connection between it
and the next learning activity’ (Van Ments 1983).
Above all else, avoid leaving the role-play activity
in a vacuum.