Documenting play: Using videotaped interviews to debrief collective bargaining games

There is a wide consensus that experiential learning, principally through role plays or simulations, is a central component of an effective program of instruction in negotiation skills. It is also widely accepted that much of the learning value of simulation is in making provision for adequate reflection on the experience. This paper introduces the videotaped “documentary interview” technique that the authors have used successfully in their collective bargaining course. The technique serves both as a medium for contemporaneous, focused, but non-directive reflection during an extended collective bargaining simulation, and as an ideal vehicle for post-experience debriefing.