Using Jazz as a Metaphor to Teach Improvisational Communication Skills.

Paul Haidet,Richard Street,Heather Stuckey,Jodi Jarecke,Cayla Teal,Chengwu Yang

doi:10.3390/healthcare5030041

Abstract

Metaphor helps humans understand complex concepts by “mapping” them onto accessible concepts. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of using jazz as a metaphor to teach senior medical students improvisational communication skills, and to understand student learning experiences. The authors designed a month-long course that used jazz to teach improvisational communication. A sample of fourth-year medical students (N = 30) completed the course between 2011 and 2014. Evaluation consisted of quantitative and qualitative data collected pre- and post-course, with comparison to a concurrent control group on some measures. Measures included: (a) Student self-reports of knowledge and ability performing communicative tasks; (b) blinded standardized patient assessment of students’ adaptability and quality of listening; and (c) qualitative course evaluation data and open-ended interviews with course students. Compared to control students, course students demonstrated statistically significant and educationally meaningful gains in adaptability and listening behaviors. Students’ course experiences suggested that the jazz components led to high engagement and creativity, and provided a model to guide application of improvisational concepts to their own communication behaviors. Metaphor proved to be a powerful tool in this study, partly through enabling increased reflection and decreased resistance to behaviors that, on the surface, tended to run counter to generally accepted norms. The use of jazz as a metaphor to teach improvisational communication warrants further refinement and investigation.

Highlights

Conceptual metaphor is a linguistic device that helps humans understand and communicate complex concepts by mapping them on to well-known or concrete concepts [1]
Ten fourth-year students participated in the control group and completed the two standardized patient interviews; six of these students were female
Since the results of those analyses did not differ substantively from those for the entire cohort, we report results from combined data across all four years students

Summary

Introduction

Conceptual metaphor is a linguistic device that helps humans understand and communicate complex concepts by mapping them on to well-known or concrete concepts [1]. For For the the past several years, connections ideas thatculturally are culturally accessible. Past several years,we wehave have been been exploring connections between jazz jazz performance performance and and patient–physician patient–physician encounters encounters [2],. [2], using using jazz jazz as as aa metaphor metaphor to to explore explore between the improvisational aspects of medical communication. To develop an electivecourse courseforfor fourth-year medical students at fostering students’. Improvisational elective fourth-year medical students aimedaimed at fostering students’. In this we study, we sought to investigate the effects of jazz usingtojazz to communication skills. This study, sought to investigate the effects of using teach teach communication skills, to understand the learning processes that students experienced. Communication skills, and toand understand the learning processes that students experienced

Objectives

Results

Discussion

Conclusion