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VOLUME XVI, NUMBER 30

% INNOVATION ABSTRACTS

PUBLISHED BY THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR. STAFF AND. ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT (NISOD), COLLEGE OF EDUCATION, THE

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN + WITH SUPPORT FROM THE W. K. KELLOGG FOUNDATION AND THE SID W. RICHARDSON FOUNDATION

 

Teaching Empathy and Understanding With a Game

It is difficult to teach students concepts in the affective
domain. It is even more difficult to get students to examine
their feelings and biases effectively. I struggle with this
task each year in teaching beginning nursing students.

These students have particular difficulty identifying
with the elderly. The component of the course that deals
with older patients is often met with reluctance, anxiety,
and negative attitudes. Entering the clinical setting with
these feelings typically results in a poor experience for the
students and for the patients. It is obvious that for students
to learn about and care effectively for older patients, they
must think critically about their own attitudes and increase
their understanding and empathy for the problems of the
elderly. This year, we used a game to create an environ-
ment for helping them accomplish these objectives.

The Game

The students “lived” the experiences of the elderly in
this game. They started at the “identity table” where they
were asked to select an age (older than 65), an occupation
from which they have retired, a retirement lifestyle, and
three personal possessions that they would like to take
with them to a nursing home. To aid in the process of
identifying with the elderly, students were given simulated
deficits associated with aging: cotton placed in their ears
simulated some degree of deafness; glasses with vaseline
on the lens simulated cataracts; gloves with tongue
depressors in one or two fingers simulated the stiffened
joints of arthritis; shoelaces tied together produced the
limited gait of arthritic hips; and pebbles placed in shoes
provided the pain of walking with corns, bunions, or
arthritic deformities.

The game identified three functional levels of elder
living: independent, assisted, and totally dependent; each
level was located at a separate table. Each had a table
operator who wore an identification badge, Game Overall
Director (GOD). Operators were coached to display biases
and discriminatory practices typical of those seen in
society. At Table 1, a newly retired player might be
discouraged from learning to drive a car by being told he is
too old to learn that now. A player at Table 2 might have
cash (three pennies) confiscated for safekeeping and told
he is not capable of handling his own finances. At Table 3,

a player might be tied into a chair and labeled senile. An
income grid allowed players an opportunity to supplement
their fixed income. The operator of this area was equally
demeaning to the players, attempting to cheat them or
involve them in questionable money-making schemes.

At each table, players drew cards and proceeded
through the game as the cards indicated. Some cards had
positive consequences; however, the greatest number had
negative consequences which caused the players to move
from their independent healthy state to an eventual
assisted, or total dependent state, with the loss of personal
effects and income. Even their identities were threatened
with nicknames such as “Pops,” “Honey,” and “Sweetie.”
As totally dependent, they were left on bedpans for
prolonged periods of time, fed baby food, and their
requests and complaints were ignored, until finally the
consequence of death, instead of invoking dread, actually
became a relief that the struggle was over.

The game was played for approximately one hour, then
discussion allowed students to verbalize their feelings and
observations. Students also were asked to critique the
game for its value as a learning experience.

Evaluation

By altering students’ perspectives of the elderly, we had
hoped that their attitudes would change and that the care
they delivered to their aged clients would improve. After
the game, students in the clinical setting did show greater
patience, concern, and empathy for their elderly clients.
The nursing home rotation was seen as an opportunity to
interact with the elderly, instead of a dreaded requirement,
and a few students expressed a desire to return to the
nursing home for further clinical experiences.

The utilization of this game as a teaching /learning tool
allowed students the opportunity to experience the life of
the elderly in a safe, reality-oriented environment. Stu-
dents were able to explore their feelings and examine
biases from a perspective designed to promote insights and
understanding. The instructors worked to create an
emotional and intellectual climate that was constructive
and caring in order for students to freely participate and to
be able to draw their own inferences and conclusions from
the experience without fear of censure.

 

 

THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR STAFF AND ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT (NISOD)
Community College Leadership Program, Department of Educational Administration
College of Education, The University of Texas at Austin, EDB 348, Austin. Texas 78712