Special Guidelines for Using Role-Playing and Instruments
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SPECIAL GUIDELINES FOR USING
ROLE-PLAYING AND INSTRUMENTS
The following guidelines will be useful to instructors who have not had extensive
experience with role-playing activities, or have not used self-diagnostic questionnaires
and personality scales in the classroom.
Special Guidelines for Using Role-playing
1
Role-playing is probably one of the oldest (comparatively speaking) techniques
for making behavioral science materials “come alive” in the classroom. The advantages
are well known and have been spelled out more fully in a variety of very dated but
‘original’ sources.
2
We will only briefly list them here:
1. Role-playing provides a real world context for exploring behavioral principles, as
opposed to discussing them as abstract theory or as principles devoid of the
organizational nitty-gritty.
2. It allows for spontaneity and involvement in the material, and requires more of a
personal commitment from the student than reading and discussing a case.
3. It permits the examination of behavior, as opposed to theoretical analysis or
speculation. What people actually do is, of course, often quite different from
what they say they would do or others should do. Role-playing enables us to
look at what people actually do.
4. At the same time, it gives people the opportunity to experiment with new ways of
behaving without necessarily facing the real-world consequences of that
experimentation.
5. Finally, the involvement bred by role-playing increases diagnostic skills for
understanding the nature of the situation, the complexity of human behavior (as
opposed to being able to articulate “simple common sense”), and to test out
possible solutions.
The role-playing scenarios in this book specify times, description of the roles, and
discussion. However, many other behavioral science cases can easily be adapted for
role- playing use in the classroom. We offer the following guidelines for using a role-
playing activity:
1. Plan how to you are going to use it. Consider the use of the role-play in the
broad context of both the content and other learning devices to be used.
1
Reprinted from Instructors Manual to Accompany Experiences in Management and Organizational
Behavior, 2nd Edition, John Wiley and Sons, 1982. Used with Permission.
2
(e.g. Miles, 1959; Thelen, 1964; Maier, 1965, 1975).
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2. Decide whether you are going to pre-select people for certain roles from the
class, involve the class in this “casting” process, or merely ask for volunteers.
There are usually good reasons for doing your casting in a particular way. You
may want to select certain “types” of people to play certain “types” of roles you
ought to share these criteria with the class after the exercise. On the other hand,
you may want to have the class help you select people, you may want to select
at random, or you may want to select individuals who make significant points in a
class discussion.
3. Decide whether you want to “replicate” the role-playing by having everyone take
on a role and conducting a number of role-plays simultaneously, or use the role-
play as a demonstration in front of the class. While the former breeds the
greatest degree of involvement, the latter is more common, gives you more
control over the learning process, and allows for other options.
4. Allow warm-up time for the role-players. Make sure they understand their own
role and what expectations are placed on then by the scenario they will enact.
(Often, however, you may want to ask individuals to play a role impromptu, as
they are discussing a case.)
5. Decide whether you want to share knowledge of what the other role-players will
be presenting, or whether each role-player should see only his own “script.” This
latter alternative is usually used when the nature of the role-play deals with
people’s hidden thoughts, feelings, or attitudes, or when people are in
competition or conflict with one another.
6. Know when you want to “cut” —at your own discretion, or fix the time limits and
adhere to them.
Alternative uses of role-playing are becoming more common, supplementing the
technology of videotape. Here are some ideas:
1. Interrupt a role-play and allow people to step out of role and discuss what they
have been doing — then return to the action.
2. Interrupt a role-play and use other members of the class as “consultants.” Each
role-player meets with his consultants before he returns to continue the role-play.
3. Complete a role-play, videotaping the entire sequence. After some discussion of
the role-play, introduction of theory or concepts, etc., replay the videotape,
stopping it at critical points. The initial action can often be done before class.
4. Interrupt a role-play and let other members of the class substitute for one or more
of the role-players, then continue the action. This technique might be used when
you want to explore different ways of handling a problem (e.g., role-playing a
supervisor managing a difficult motivation situation with employees).
Special Guidelines for Using Role-Playing and Instruments
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5. Try “instant replay” with live action or videotape. After stopping a role-play and
critiquing it, repeat the same scene with the same (or different) actors. This is
often a very useful process when asking people to master specific skills (e.g.,
giving feedback, listening, interviewing, etc.).
6. Experiment with “alter–ego,” a variation on the “substitute” principle. People in
the audience can act as a particular role-player’s alter ego, saying what they
think the role-player is thinking or feeling but not verbalizing. This is often a good
way to get feelings and thoughts on the table that would otherwise go unspoken.
How to Debrief a Role-Play/Simulation
There are as many ways to debrief a role-play or simulation as there are
instructors! Below we offer some general principles and a few guidelines:
General Principles:
1. Students usually want to talk about the experience they just had—particularly if it
was emotionally ‘charged.’ The more emotionally-charged the activity, the more
students will need to ‘vent’.
2. Students may be less interested in hearing others talk then talking themselves,
particularly if their relationships with the other party have been contentious or
adversarial.
3. Early in a course, students may think that everybody in the class had the same
experience, when in fact the experiences may have been very different,
depending on which pair or group they were in.
4. Students should be asked what they think was the purpose of the exercise, and
what key points were intended by the instructor in conducting the exercise.
5. Many students also want to hear what the instructor believes should have been
learned from the exercise, and what are the key themes or points. This instructor
summary can be tied to theory or readings related to that exercise.
6. Given all of this, debriefing activities should be managed reasonably tightly.
Student airtime should be managed to keep a few from dominating, focus on the
topics should move along, and dialogue or debate should not be allowed to drag.
Guidelines and Possibilities:
1. Have students report out ‘results’ from the exercise. These can be written on
whiteboards, flipcharts or overheads to compare and contrast different results.
2. Use different results to inquire from pairs about different processes or dynamics
that lead to those results.
3. Ask 2-3 pairs to convene in a small group to share their experiences before
sharing with the large group.
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4. As the discussion winds down, ask 2-3 students to summarize why they think the
exercise was conducted, and offer 2-3 take away ideas.
5. Be prepared with a single overhead slide to present your own view of what was
to be observed, learned or concluded.
6. Tie the exercise to specific readings, theory or content that is being studied in the
course for that week.
Special Guidelines for Using Instruments
There are a number of advantages to using instruments in teaching negotiation:
1. They are a simple way to teach concepts and theory, since the participant must
respond to questions that measure the attitudes or behavior relevant to that
theory.
2. They produce involvement and interest in the theory as it personally applies to
the participants, rather than as abstractions.
3. They provide useful information for the participant about himself that he can
integrate with other aspects of his self image.
4. Similarly, they provide information that helps the participant distinguish himself
from others in the immediate environment, as well as from commonly established
norms, information that can be confirmed by other kinds of attitudinal and
behavioral data.
5. When administered more than once over time, they help to measure the degree
and direction of change.
Instructors often experience certain disadvantages with instrumentation, however.
These disadvantages can, to a large degree, be anticipated and diminished by your
awareness of the following:
1. Some participants may fear that their scores will be made public, and that others
will find out damaging information about them. This concern for privacy is a real
and legitimate one, and should be honored. Therefore, only ask people to share
their scores in small groups, and with people whom they feel they can trust.
Don’t require individuals to reveal their scores in large groups unless they are
willing. Respect the wishes of any individual who does not want to share his
scores at all. Finally, we have often found it useful as instructors and group
leaders to share our own scores or responses, thus beginning a “self-disclosure
cycle” that helps participants to share their scores. Sharing of your own scores
will also facilitate discussion and interpretation of the instrument, as we describe
below.
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2. Some participants may feel that such instruments cannot measure anything
“meaningful.” These attitudes are usually related to a general distrust of
behavioral science, a fear of disclosure of personal information, and stereotyped
images of psychologists that lead to suspicion and denigration of most attempts
to make the study of human behavior “scientific.” Therefore, show the
relationship of the instrument and scores to real-world examples that would
exemplify these scores. For example, with the FIRO-B instrument, show how the
person’s self-description of himself on the items can relate to behavior that he
would demonstrate in interpersonal settings. Also show the relationship of the
instrument to the “theory of human behavior” that is being used. Point out those
items that cluster together for various aspects of the theory, and how the scores
indicate the strength of the individual’s dispositions.
3. You should also be prepared to help the individual explore “contradictory” data —
that is, information about himself from the instrument that he finds contrary to his
own view of his behavior. This may be done by discovering whether the
individual felt he was honest in answering the questionnaire (checking the validity
of the responses), and/or asking him to describe his scores to close friends to
see whether or not they agree with his self-description (checking the validity of
his self-perception).
4. Also, be prepared to discuss the problems of reliability and margin for error in
any set of questionnaire responses. We have usually found it useful to state that
any set of questionnaire responses is only one set of data about oneself, and that
the data must be explored to see if it is reliable (i.e., to see if the same pattern
emerges on additional administrations of the instrument) and valid (fits with the
way an individual, or other individuals, perceive his behavior).
Finally, do not try to use instruments which are too heavily “value–laden” — that is,
instruments for which there is a strong social desirability component, or where one
set of scores (and behavior) is perceived as much more socially valuable than
others. Nevertheless, individuals may interpret certain sets of answers in this way. It
is important that you stress two things in your discussion of the instrument: First,
point out what YOU may feel to be the “socially desirable” set of responses, and
indicate how you feel that this has been built into the instrument. Second, legitimize
feeling that not everyone is the same, nor can be and that people whose scores
deviate from the norm should not be worried about their differences. In using these
instruments, we often get the question, “My scores are so–so. Am I weird?” In spite
of the humor that may surround the question, it is a serious one for many people in
the audience, and you should be prepared to handle it.