1. © LOUIS COHEN, LAWRENCE MANION & KEITH MORRISON
ROLE PLAY
© LOUIS COHEN, LAWRENCE MANION & KEITH MORRISON

2. STRUCTURE OF THE CHAPTER
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

3. 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.

4. 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

5. STAGES IN ROLE PLAY
Three stages:
Briefing
Acting
Debriefing

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. 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.

9. 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.

10. 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.

11. CONDUCTING ROLE-PLAY 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

12. 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;

13. 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;

14. 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.

15. 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.

16. 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