Role play as a teaching method to improve student learning experience of a bachelor degree programme in a transnational context: an action research study

Abstract

Role play provides additional learning opportunities to students through interaction with other students in classrooms. Modes of delivery in modules for a bachelor degree programme at Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool (XJTLU)a transnational education (TNE) providerare mainly teacher-led lectures and seminars. In my action research, an intuitive proactive approach was adopted, Kodotchigova's modified role play method. After the role play, a survey with open-ended questions (modified from XJTLU Student Module Feedback Questionnaire) gathered the perceptions of students of the role play on their learning experience. Twentyfive students aged ≥ eighteen years (twenty females and five males) agreed to participate. Eighty per cent of the students reported that role play helped them to learn and seventy-two per cent that role play stimulated their interest in the module's subject. In conclusion, role play was a very useful teaching strategy for helping students to demonstrate, after first learning various theoretical perspectives, practical application to real-life situations. However, role play might not be suitable for all students, as some may prefer it mixed with other teaching strategies in classrooms, particularly in a TNE context.

Learning About Landslide Disaster Mitigation Based on a Role-Playing Method Assisted by the Disaster Education Pocket Book

“…In this method, students will learn new things while exchanging dialogues with each other to represent certain characters (Rashid, & Qaisar, 2017). In addition, the roles they play will also encourage students to be actively involved and provide opportunities for them to connect between theories learned in the classroom and those practiced (Ma, 2020). As in the material of landslide mitigation, students will be involved in playing roles to understand various parties or stakeholders when a landslide occurs so that they will get new knowledge about landslide mitigation from other friends through dialogues.…”

“…The high effectiveness of learning using the role-playing method is the implication of the activeness and real action of students in the learning process. Through the role-playing method, students' critical thinking skills will increase (Sofyan, Buaja, & Rahman, 2018) Besides, with that method, the ability of problemsolving in students will also upgrade (Ma, 2020). This is because the role-playing method will help students to get involved in acting as real situations.…”

Validity, Practicality, and Effectiveness: The Last Step in Development of Entrepreneurship Education Based Role-Playing for Kindergarten

“…This means that the role-playing model is more concerned with aspects of the process than aspects of content alone. This method also helps children develop critical thinking activities and apply their knowledge to real-life scenarios [50].…”