The educational value of improvisational actors to teach communication and relational skills: Perspectives of interprofessional learners, faculty, and actors

ObjectiveTo assess the educational value of improvisational actors in difficult conversation simulations to teach communication and relational skills to interprofessional learners.MethodsSurveys of 192 interprofessional health care professionals, and 33 teaching faculty, and semi-structured interviews of 10 actors. Descriptive statistics, Fisher's exact test and chi-square test were used for quantitative analyses, and the Crabtree and Miller approach was used for qualitative analyses.Results191/192 (99.5%) interprofessional learners (L), and 31/33 (94%) teaching faculty (F) responded to surveys. All 10/10 actors completed interviews. Nearly all participants found the actors realistic (98%L, 96%F), and valuable to the learning (97%L, 100%F). Most felt that role-play with another clinician would not have been as valuable as learning with actors (80%L, 97%F). There were no statistically significant differences in perceived value between learners who participated in the simulations (47%) versus those who observed (53%), or between doctors, nurses, or psychosocial professionals. Qualitative assessment yielded five actor value themes: Realism, Actor Feedback, Layperson Perspective, Depth of Emotion, and Role of Improvisation in Education. Actors independently identified similar themes as goals of their work.ConclusionsThe value attributed to actors was nearly universal among interprofessional learners and faculty, and independent of enactment participation versus observation. Authenticity, feedback from actors, patient/family perspectives, emotion, and improvisation were key educational elements.