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Curtains up! Using forum theatre to rehearse the art of communication in healthcare education

Curtains up! Using forum theatre to rehearse the art of communication in healthcare education
Curtains up! Using forum theatre to rehearse the art of communication in healthcare education
Teaching students to develop high quality communication skills in healthcare education is vitally important if best practice is to be achieved. These skills have often been seen as challenging to successfully develop. Didactic approaches impart knowledge but not necessarily the opportunities to practice communication techniques. This paper shares the experiences of a group of University lecturers introducing the use of an experiential theatrical technique, forum theatre, to support students to develop their communication skills. Forum theatre aims to create a dynamic learning environment enabling students to try out different communication strategies within a safe setting. Academic staff perform short scripted scenes developed using their knowledge from practice along with the experience of carers and service users. The end result is always unsatisfactory for the service user. The scene is then re-run inviting the students to interact with the characters and to change the outcome to a positive one resulting in a collaborative experience.

forum theatre, communication, higher education, healthcare
1471-5953
139-142
Middlewick, Yvonne
e4ca5d30-08ff-4abf-800e-32482e5727e3
Kettle, Trevor J.
e935a477-344b-4ecf-b585-50078287dc5c
Wilson, James J.
cdc3a4ee-f706-4ad8-91ef-a08bc4148997
Middlewick, Yvonne
e4ca5d30-08ff-4abf-800e-32482e5727e3
Kettle, Trevor J.
e935a477-344b-4ecf-b585-50078287dc5c
Wilson, James J.
cdc3a4ee-f706-4ad8-91ef-a08bc4148997

Middlewick, Yvonne, Kettle, Trevor J. and Wilson, James J. (2012) Curtains up! Using forum theatre to rehearse the art of communication in healthcare education. Nurse Education in Practice, 12 (3), 139-142. (doi:10.1016/j.nepr.2011.10.010). (PMID:22094107)

Record type: Article

Abstract

Teaching students to develop high quality communication skills in healthcare education is vitally important if best practice is to be achieved. These skills have often been seen as challenging to successfully develop. Didactic approaches impart knowledge but not necessarily the opportunities to practice communication techniques. This paper shares the experiences of a group of University lecturers introducing the use of an experiential theatrical technique, forum theatre, to support students to develop their communication skills. Forum theatre aims to create a dynamic learning environment enabling students to try out different communication strategies within a safe setting. Academic staff perform short scripted scenes developed using their knowledge from practice along with the experience of carers and service users. The end result is always unsatisfactory for the service user. The scene is then re-run inviting the students to interact with the characters and to change the outcome to a positive one resulting in a collaborative experience.

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More information

Published date: May 2012
Keywords: forum theatre, communication, higher education, healthcare

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 354092
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/354092
ISSN: 1471-5953
PURE UUID: fba857f4-6055-448a-a58f-88034bc4e1b1
ORCID for Trevor J. Kettle: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0001-9623-3586
ORCID for James J. Wilson: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-7924-9997

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 01 Jul 2013 09:17
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 03:10

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Contributors

Author: Yvonne Middlewick
Author: James J. Wilson ORCID iD

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