Readers Theatre as an arts-based approach to education: A scoping review on experiences of adult learners and educators.

BACKGROUND

Arts-based educational methodologies have been implemented in nursing and other health disciplines to promote person-centered approaches to care. Readers Theatre has been applied as a tool to promote compassionate and holistic approaches to care. Readers Theatre is a form of drama that requires participants to read aloud a scripted narrative to the audience.

OBJECTIVES

To examine the extant literature on experiences of adult learners and educators in utilizing Readers Theatre, and its potential suitability for nurse education. The review question was: "What are the learning experiences of adult students and the teaching experiences of educators in the uptake of Readers Theatre?"

DESIGN AND DATA SOURCES

Scoping review guidelines proposed by Arksey and O'Malley were adopted. Academic databases searches were carried out in ProQuest, JSTOR, Scholars Portal, EBSCO, Web of Science, PubMed, Expanded Academic ASAP, and Scopus.

REVIEW METHODS

The search and keyword strategy was developed by two reviewers and approved by the lead author, and a librarian. All titles and abstracts were individually examined by the two reviewers with discrepancies discussed and resolved by both parties. Data were extracted for thematic analysis.

RESULTS

A total of 31 studies were selected for the final sample. Four themes were identified within the scoping review relevant to Readers Theatre teaching-learning experiences: 1) principles and characteristics; 2) awareness, understanding, caring and empathy; 3) cross-disciplinary collaboration, interdisciplinary education, and knowledge dissemination; and 4) promoting students' skills.

CONCLUSIONS

Readers Theatre has the potential to be utilized within a nursing curriculum, and particularly in theory and substantive class-based courses, through active group learning, in the application phase of knowledge acquisition.