Abstract
The purposes of this study were to clarify verbal and non-verbal communication contents and patterns in nursing students' role-playing, and to examine contents and teaching methods of a nursing practicum program for improving students' communication skill. Ninety six video-recorded role-playing scenes acted by 139 nursing students were analyzed by using Behavior Coding System (DKH, PTS-07) and previous studies coding systems (Ivey, Roter, Hays and Larson, and Saito). The main results were followed : (1) Seventeen verbal and four non-verbal communication occurrences were observed ; (2) Frequently observed communication patterns in the first half of role-playing were "Closed question", "Open question" and "Minimum encouragement", whereas "Advice" and "Personal support" in the latter half; and (3) The duration of "Silence", "Withdraw gaze", and "Irrelevant laughter" increased towards the end of role-playing. These findings indicate that contents of guidance prior to role-playing and psychological aspects of nursing students should be considered when employing role-playing in the initial stage of a communication skill education program.
