This thesis examines the use of actor-based Applied Theatre methods within the workplace. Typically such methods are employed for behavioural skills training with the intention of enabling staff to effectively perform their work roles in a context of rapid and fundamental change to work practices and structures. This research uses case studies and mixed methods and finds that whilst work-based Applied Theatre may be commissioned for reasons of efficiency, in practice there is also the potential for individual efficacy. Whilst competitive forces drive the imperative for increased efficiency, the practice opens a space where the human consequences of this pressure can be explored. Studies of Applied Theatre have ignored or excluded the workplace as a site of research and consequently applications of these methods are under researched and little understood. This thesis questions the exclusive assumptions of the academic field, presenting a more complex picture of the practice than currently appears in the literature. Whilst the workplace presents many tensions that must be negotiated, this research finds that the participative, embodied and dialogic qualities of the practice can enable a space for catharsis, negotiation, expression and learning not possible through other methods. These dialogic and participatory qualities are found to promote a social model of leadership and interaction that is progressive, facilitating a shift away from pervasive mechanistic command and control approaches to management and leadership. A central quality of this efficacy and impact was found to be the role of the workplace actor which has evolved beyond the delivery of performance and into innovative approaches that aim to increase the actor’s contribution to learning. This emerging hybrid role is defined here as the ‘pedagogical actor’, drawing on skills of calibration, feedback and facilitation in addition to delivering a credible performance. Case Studies include an examination of the use actor-based role-play within financial services company Friends Provident and Forum Theatre used by the multi-national 3M, in addition to numerous case examples.

The efficacy of using simulated patients (SPs) to train clinical interviewing skills in pre-practicum- and practicum-level mental health clinicians was evaluated compared to the use of traditional role-play with peers. Participants, regardless of group, engaged in a 15-minute videotaped simulated clinical session with an SP as a pre- and post-test measurement and completed five laboratory sessions, either utilizing role-play with peers or with an SP. Participants' counseling self-efficacy (CSE), measured by the Counseling Self-Estimate Inventory (COSE); state anxiety, measured by the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, Version Y-1 (STAI Y-1); and self-reflective anxiety, measured by the Fear of Negative Evaluation scale (FNE), were assessed pre- and post-intervention. An inventory to evaluate participants' clinical competency acquisition, the Skills in Psychological Interviewing: Clinical Evaluation Scale (SPICES), was developed for the study. All participants, regardless of group, improved significantly on all measurements except fear of negative evaluation. No differences were observed between groups on outcome variables. However, all participants' pre- and post-test interaction with the SP may account for these improvements. CSE, state anxiety, and fear of negative evaluation were found to account for a small amount of variance in clinical competency acquisition in this study. The piloted SPICES scale exhibited good validity and strong inter-rater reliability estimates. Results support the efficacy of these training methods in decreasing student clinicians' anxiety levels and in increasing students' CSE and skill acquisition; furthermore, a clinical competency measure is introduced.

In this thesis, I explored children’s experiences of role-play in relation to notions of self. The research took place in two pack-away settings in the Private, Voluntary and Independent (PVI) sector of Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC). The experiences of eight children, aged between three-year-three months and four-years one month, were investigated over a period of seven months. I used an adaptation of The Mosaic Approach (Clark and Moss 2001) combined with a reflective lenses approach (Brookfield 1995) to create a three-dimensional view of the children’s experiences. The children and I used a range of tools to gather data including digital cameras, conferencing, drawing and map-making. Children were conceptualised as agentic and capable of commenting on their lives and experiences (James et al 1998, Qvortrup 2004, Cosaro 2010). The findings revealed that children engage in Wave Play, a fluid form of role-play in which they move both props and ideas from space to space. Practitioners support the children in finding the necessary props and allowing them to move from one area of the setting to another. The children displayed positive self-esteem and effective social behaviours showing an awareness of themselves as social beings. They were confident that their needs will be met when they request support. In their role-play activities, they showed their understanding of themselves as integrated selves; beings, becomings and having beens (Cross 2011). Adults in pack-away settings can support children effectively by adopting a flexible pedagogical approach.

The validity of the speech act data obtained from different types of elicitation instruments has been widely debated in the Interlanguage Pragmatics literature. This study compared the use of apology strategies and modality markers from apology speech act data collected from two most popular speech act elicitation tasks, namely, Discourse Completion Task (DCT) and role plays. Sixty native speakers of Chinese (NS-C) and sixty EFL learners responded to DCT. Twenty four NS-C and forty EFL learners participated in role plays. Results show that subjects tended to use Direct Expression of Apology, Acknowledge Responsibility and Offer of Repairs as their main strategies in apology situations both on DCT and in role plays. In addition, participants tended to exploit MAXIMIZERs more than MINIMIZERs in both methods. However, differences between two approaches were revealed when frequencies and distributions of apology strategies and modality markers were examined. Role plays elicited overall more apology strategies and modality markers than DCT did. Participants were also found to employ a narrower range of strategies and modality markers on DCT. Because of the feeling of insecurity in face-to-face encounters (Rintell and Mitchell, 1989), EFL-L exhibited more ¡¥play-it-safe¡¦ strategies (Faerch and Kasper, 1989; Trosborg, 1987) by giving more direct apologies, and exploiting more MAXIMIZERs than MINIMIZERs across four situations. When dividing NS-C into two separate groups: English majors (NS-C-EM) and non-English (NS-C-NEM), some in-group differences were revealed. For instance, in role-play data, the preference order for apology strategy choice was different between NS-C-EM and NS-C-NEM. Also, NS-C-EM tended to exploit overall more Chinese particles, a, ba, and ne, than their NS-C-NEM counterparts. The finding suggests that it is necessary to divide NS-C into different groups based on their educational background such as English majors and non-English majors. The present study also pointed out that traditional categorization of apology internal modification which was based on the language system of English may fail to fully capture Chinese apology behaviors. Chinese modal particles which have no English equivalent (Tang and Tang, 1997) have been ignored in the categorization of apology internal modifications in the literature. Thus, a modified coding system which included Chinese particles, namely, ¡§A¡¨ (°Ú), ¡§BA¡¨ (§a), and ¡§NE¡¨ (©O), was proposed based on traditional categorization of apology internal modification developed in the previous studies (Blum-Kulka & Kasper, 1989; Lin and Ho, 2006; Trosborg, 1995). The result indicates that while the previous study (Lin and Ho, 2006) on apology internal modification which excluded Chinese particles has revealed that NS-C exploited less modality markers than their native speakers of English (NS-E) counterparts, the result in the present showed an opposite pattern in that by tagging Chinese particles at the end of the utterances, NS-C were found to modulate their tone more often than NS-E. This might imply the importance of the Chinese particles for NS-C in conveying attitude. Finally, in order to increase the validity of data elicitation methods, further studies addressed to the methodological issue should include the analysis of the responses obtained from naturally occurring data and examine whether both data obtained from DCT and role plays are representative of ¡¥natural speech¡¦ . Also, in order to have cross-cultural and cross-linguistic comparison, speech acts data produced by NS-E, NS-C, and EFL learners collected through DCT, role plays, and naturally occurring data are needed for future researches.

This thesis focuses on the different aspects of role-play as an approach for user-centred design of mobile information technology (IT). This is done through development of a sequence of workshops and reflecting on the outcome. The motivation for the thesis has been to develop an understanding of the important conditions for involving end-users in the process of understanding user needs and exploring requirements for mobile IT. The need for new methods to understand mobile IT and the focus on user involvement in the traditions of participatory design and user-centred design established the background for the work. Most of the workshops were carried out in a hospital context. The overall research approach has been to work iteratively by carrying out a set of smaller studies, so-called workshops. The research design was flexible, characterized by a design that evolves, develops and unfolds, as the research proceeds. The current state of the knowledge on role-play called for a qualitative approach with a focus on understanding important issues concerning user role-plays. The overall research subject of this thesis is: Develop understanding of key premises for using role-play with low-fidelity prototyping to involve end-users in exploring user needs and requirements for mobile IT. This research subject was further divided into three specific research questions: What are the important issues related to planning and running of role-play design workshops with end-users? What do system developers perceive as the strengths and limitations of such role-play workshops as a system development method? What is the role of the workshop facilitators in such role-play work­shops? Five categories of issues of importance for planning and running of role-play workshops with end-users were identified: practicalities, user role-playing, idea generation, workshop resources and roles in the workshop. The system developers regarded the approach as useful for several reasons including enhancing user involvement, helping developers understand the context of use, and creating a focus in a project. The developers also called attentions to limitations of using role-play; such as a narrow user view on the system that does not take system development premises into account. One of the issues that emerged as a particularly important factor in the workshops was the role-play facilitator’s skills in leading the role-play part and the idea generation process. A framework developed by Yardley-Matwiejcsuk proved useful for understanding how to develop and rehearse these kinds of role-play. The thesis contributes with an understanding of different aspects regarding role-play workshops with end users in the field of Human-Computer Interaction.

This study aimed to investigate Chinese EFL interlanguage complaint behaviors in terms of production collected by role play and DCT. Four contextual factors were involved: social distance, social status, gender and obligation. A total of 320 role plays were elicited from 80 college students, including 20 native speakers of English, 20 native speakers of Chinese, 20 EFL-low proficiency learners and 20 EFL-high proficiency learners. Additionally, the DCT data were elicited by 180 participants, including 60 native speakers of Chinese, 60 native speakers of English, 30 EFL-high proficiency learners and 30 EFL-low proficiency learners. Three aspects of complaints were examined: complaint strategies, complaint modifications and the effect of language proficiency. Results showed that no matter in role play or on DCT, participants tended to use more indirect strategies to avoid conflicts with others. Below the level of Reproach was the main complaint strategy they used. Besides, the complaint strategies used by the four groups were quite similar in role play. However, they differed in the frequency of strategy use, the preference orders, and modifications used in making their complaints. On the other hand, participants performed quite differently on DCT. They differed in strategy use, but there were no significant difference in frequency use, preference orders, and the use of modifications. Furthermore, NS-E tended to use more direct strategies than EFL learners. This result echoed Olshtain and Weinbach¡¦s (1993) findings that learners would use less severe strategies than native speakers because learners would try to ¡§¡Kavoid straightforward face-threatening interactions at all costs¡¨ (p. 115). Besides, proficiency effect is found in EFL learners¡¦ interlanguage complaints production. It is more difficult for EFL-L learners to make complaints because of their low L2 proficiency. For future studies, gathering natural occurring data to compare the differences between role play is suggested. Besides, due to time limitation, the issue of interlocutor gender differences is not discussed and future work could include this matter to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the speech at of complaints.

Research was conducted to determine if role-play, when utilized within environmental education programs, could strengthen feelings of connection to nature in children. Six classes participated in the study through taking part in a field trip at the Devonian Botanic Garden; a department of the University of Alberta located in Edmonton, Alberta. Classes participated in one of two programs, which differed in pedagogical strategies: one used a delivery method of direct instruction and the other guided embodiment. Two data collection techniques were used: pre and post program surveys, as well art development - both techniques designed to measure the effect of the pedagogical strategies on the participant's feelings of connectedness to nature. Findings indicated that students who participated in the embodiment program showed inclination to value their environment more intrinsically, where students participating in the direct instruction program showed tendency to view the environment more anthropocentrically.

This study is about exclusion and childrens role-play in Swedish preschools. 8 preschool teachers, in 4 different preschools, have been interviewed about exclusion and low and high rating roles in children's role-play. The interviews was recorded and then analyzed. Relevant research in this study was from Corsaro, Tellgren and Löfdahl amongst others, and the results of the interviews is what this study is based on. The study showed that one of the most common roles in childrens role-play is the role of mother and that the roles children play are based on social norms and values. Children wants the roles with the highest status, because they want the power that comes with that role. Other commons roles was father, child and pets, and characters from children movies, such as Spiderman and Anna and Elsa from Frozen. This study also includes researchers and preschool teachers views on childrens role-play and free play.

This thesis undertakes a description and analysis of the way in which Australian higher education students perform roles through the use of online role-play systems at the University of Melbourne. It includes a description of two case studies: DRALE Online, developed in 1997, and The Campaign, developed in 2003. The research undertakes a detailed study of The Campaign, using empirical data derived from classroom observations, online communications, and semi-structured interviews. It undertakes a qualitative analysis of these data using an interpretive approach informed by models drawn from social theory and sociotechnical theory. Educational authors argue that online educational role-plays engage students in authentic learning, and represent an improvement over didactic teaching strategies. According to this literature, online role-play systems afford students the opportunity of acting and doing instead of only reading and listening. Literature in social theory and social studies of technology takes a different view of certain concepts such as performance, identity and reality. Models such as actor-network theory ask us to consider all actors in the sociotechnical network in order to understand how society and technology are related. This thesis examines these concepts by addressing a series of research questions, such as how students become engaged with identities, how identities are mediated, and the extent to which roles in these role-plays are shaped by the system, the scenario, and the agency of the actors themselves.

The current study was designed to replicate and extend previous research on the effectiveness of behavioral parent training. Specifically, the effectiveness of the Behavior Management and Parenting Services (BMAPS) curriculum in teaching parents to exhibit a set of parenting skills and respond accurately to a multiple choice examination about positive parenting techniques was evaluated. In addition, the curriculum was revised so that the relative effectiveness and acceptability of two role play formats could be assessed. The outcomes of the study showed an improvement in the participants' ability to identify correct answers on a multiple choice examination and apply the parenting skills taught in class within a role play format; results pertaining to the efficacy of each role play format were less conclusive.