Online and face-to-face role-play simulations in promoting social work students’ argumentative problem solving

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and geography to support university students' learning about discipline-specific knowledge, in addition to their generic skills about complex decision making, collaboration and understanding of societal impacts. Their research results revealed that during the role-play simulation the students learned about their roles (different values and beliefs, multiple perspectives), about the theme discussed and about the relationships between the participants. They also found that role-play simulation supported the transfer of students' learning to new contexts. Maier (2007) found that role-play simulation fostered engineering students' skills in working in multidisciplinary and international environments, helped them to see projects from multiple perspectives and supported their communication and teamwork skills. Jones Naidu, Ip and Linser (2000) found that online role-play simulations supported political science students' communication and collaboration skills, as well as particularly supporting students' active and receptive approach to learning. Hull (2008) also found synchronous online (chat) role-play simulation to be an enthusiastic and activating environment for her second language students for sharing their opinions, thoughts and arguments. Similarly, in his studies on law education, Poustie (2001) showed that role-play simulations on environmental law decision making facilitated active and integrative learning.
Role-play simulations have traditionally been conducted face-to-face in a number of disciplines (McLaughlan & Kirkpatrick, 2004). For example, Feinman (1995) presented a general framework for conducting simulations in the education of lawyers, with the students in the simulations engaging in practical situations and attempting to solve the problems from the client's viewpoint. The results of DeNeve and Heppner (1997) in a university-level industrial psychology course showed that role-play simulations encouraged students to apply material from lectures to real-life situations as an active learning method. They recommended that role-play simulation should be used in conjunction with traditional lecture teaching when structured Journal of Comparative Social Work 2013/1 7 lectures provide a learning framework for integrating acquired information to new practical situations. Fletcher (2001) used a stakeholder decision-making simulation in his study on the teaching of coastal management. According to the students' feedback, the simulation improved students' understanding of stakeholders' roles and perspectives, their negotiation skills and their skills to contribute to the debate. In addition, students' learning was noted to be deeper and the learning process more enjoyable than during standard lectures. However, as a shortcoming of the simulation, Fletcher mentioned its complexity, as several students mentioned in their feedback that they did not completely understand the procedure during the simulation. Davidson, Preez, Gibb and Nell (2009) used role-plays among geography students in order to develop their understanding of poverty-stricken African community, and found that students' understanding developed in a multidimensional direction. The role-play simulations were interactive in nature and encouraged students to participate in decision making, as well as critically assessing their peers' viewpoints.
Plous (2000) presented a case study in which overtly presented prejudice situations were discussed through role-plays, with the results showing that the role-play provided the students with the possibility to engage in constructive discussions on difficult social problems with their peers. Similar types of role-plays have also been used as a learning method in teaching ethics in a multicultural engineering student group (Prince, 2006). Sloman and Thompson (2009) used drama on science teaching, and in their study marine biology students from three different class levels had the roles of the general public, scientists and research panelists. Sloman and Thompson also found that the students were felt to have benefitted from learning beyond the roles in developing their critical thinking and improving their communication skills by presenting their drama work to others.
Even if the research results on both the online and face-to-face learning environments presented above give a quite positive overview about the role-plays in education, many instructors hesitate to use role-plays or simulations in their teaching.
The reasons for this may be a fear of the resources required for conducting them, as Poling & Hupp, 2009). Furthermore, the online role-play simulations are quite challenging for the teacher to conduct and for the students to participate in (Poustie, 2001;Naidu, Ip, & Linser, 2000). In their pedagogical framework of role-play simulations in social science education, Asal and Blake (2006) emphasize the designers' responsibility to strictly identify the learning goals to be achieved.
Additionally, the research results by both Krain and Lantis (2006) and Poling and Hupp (2009) indicated that role-play simulations did not provide any particular improvement in students' learning results on knowledge achievement, though they seemed to have played an important role in supporting students' multifaceted understanding (see also Vapalahti, Marttunen, & Laurinen, 2010), which is an important professional competence in social work (see Uggerhøj, 2007).
Even if role-play simulations have been widely used in different areas of education, their use in social work education has been less commonly reported. However, the learning outcomes achieved through role-play simulations in other disciplines are also important from the point of view of social work education (e.g. complex decision making, collaboration skills, multifaceted understanding and social awareness).
Moss (2000) reported on the use of large-group role-play techniques in social work education conducted in the Core Social Skills Module. The pedagogical aim of the module was to introduce students to the core themes of social work, and during experiential learning situations the students were provided with a kind of inclassroom setting similar to what they might encounter in real-life social work. The students were able to integrate theory and practice in a useful and realistic way in order to receive the most beneficial properties of the role-play. The students also felt that they had the possibility to incorporate values, law, core skills and knowledge into practical issues.
Uggerhøj (2007) studied forum theatre (see Boal, 1979) as a role-play method in social work, advocating that method because while using it the highest value of social worker-client involvement might be realized. He found that role-plays used among social workers and social work clients provided the clients with an experience of Journal of Comparative Social Work 2013/1 9 being a worthy and an important informant concerning social problems, while for their part social workers obtained an opportunity to engage in discussion and problem solving with their clients.
In this study, social work students practiced argumentative problem solving through face-to-face and online role-play simulations. The research questions were: 1) Did the quality of students' argumentative problem solving improve when practiced online or face-to-face? 2) Did the students feel that they benefitted from the argumentative practicing methods?

Participants
In the spring of 2009, 38 students (36 females, 2 males) from a degree programme in Social Work at a Finnish University of Applied Sciences practiced argumentative problem solving with a six-week teaching experiment. The experiment was organized as a part of a course on preventive work against alcohol and drug abuse, and two experimental groups, an asynchronous online group (n=15) and a face-to-face group (n=14), in addition to one control group (n=9), were formed.

Design of the study and data collection
The teaching experiment consisted of six phases, including both research activities (e.g. pre-and post-tests) and regular teaching activities of the course (lectures on preventive substance abuse). The quasi-experimental design is presented in Table 1: As a pre-test (Phase 1, Table 1), all the students wrote essays after having watched a dramatization (a DVD recording) on alcohol use by elderly people. The dramatizations described ill-structured problems simulated from real-life situations, and the problems were enacted without any solutions being provided to them. In writing their essays, the students were given question prompts that were formed by utilizing the problem-solving models of Jonassen (1997) and Ge and Land (2003). After having written the essays, all the students participated in 30 lectures (of 45 min each) on preventative alcohol and drug abuse work (Phase 2). After the lectures, the 29 students in the two experimental groups participated in role-play simulation conducted either face-to-face or online (Phase 4). The nine controls completed the post-test after the lectures without participating in the role-play simulation. For the role-play simulations, the students were assigned to groups according to a test on argumentative problem solving (Phase 3) in which they were asked to solve a given social problem on drug abuse and justify their decisions. By doing it this way, it was ensured that the argumentative problem-solving skills of the students in each group were as similar as possible. Otherwise, the groups did not differ from each other in any specific way.
During the role-play simulations the students in the experimental groups, which were divided into groups of either four or five members, engaged in a debate on a fictional young girl's use of alcohol. Three groups engaged in the role-play simulation online, and three groups face-to-face, while half of the members in each group were for the young girl's use of alcohol and half were against it. Furthermore, the students were given brief descriptions of their roles in the debates. The students discussed the problematic use of alcohol by adolescents through the roles of a young girl and the people (parents, classmates and teachers) surrounding her. Both the online and face-to-face role-play simulations were planned to increase students' multidimensional understanding of alcohol use by adolescents (see Vapalahti, After having practiced argumentative problem solving, the students did a post-test (Phase 5) that included an essay writing task similar to the pre-test. In the pre-test, the students in the online group watched problem case A, whereas the students in both the face-to-face and control groups watched case B. However, in the post-test, the order of watching the cases was reversed in order to avoid any test-wise effect (see Gall, Borg, & Gall, 1996, p. 519;Campbell & Stanley, 1966, pp. 50−52).
Lastly, in Phase 6, all the students anonymously completed a questionnaire on their opinions about the benefits of the methods used during the teaching experiment. The questionnaire included Likert-scale questions on role-play simulations, as well as both closed-and open-ended questions on student's readiness to participate in similar role-play simulations in the future.

Data
The data consist of 75 student essays and 31 questionnaires. The students in the online group wrote 30 essays, the face-to-face students 27 and the controls 18 (see Table 2).

Qualitative analysis of the essays
The quality of the students' problem solving was analysed in their essays according to the analysis framework created by applying the definition of the problem-solving process used by Ge and Land (2004), The variables used in the analyses (see Table 3) were formed on the basis of the analysis framework. In the students essays the variables were identified, and the values were given according to Table 3. The qualitative analysis programme Atlas.ti was utilized in the qualitative analysis.

Problem representation:
The problem Client's and his/her close persons' perspectives

Solution development:
One's own solutions Alternative solutions

Solution evaluation:
Advantages and disadvantages of both one's own and alternative solutions • Common understanding about the problem, intervention and relationship

Argumentation:
Arguments for one's own statements related to problem solving Arguments for one's own statements related to the problem--solving

Problem representation phase
The problems the students had defined in their essays were evaluated with four variables ( Table 3). The following two text extracts illustrate a moderate-(Extract 1) and good level (Extract 2)  In the first text extract, the problem is explicitly defined as it was presented in the story on the DVD. The student has not used any of the clues given on the DVD to understand the essence of the problem. In the second extract, the problem is defined from a client's viewpoint. This definition represents the constructionist approach in social work, as the student has questioned the problem given explicitly on the DVD (elderly people's use of alcohol), which indicates that the student understands that the behaviour of the client's relatives was also problematic.
The students' way to justify their definition of the problem was also assessed. The most valuable justification (Variable 2, Value 2) in a social work context is a In defining the problem, the student first pays attention to the client's (Paavo) viewpoint, while next also taking the client's close persons' (Raili and her daughters) viewpoints into account. According to the idea of constructive social work, the client's viewpoint is the first that has to be considered (Parton & O'Byrne, 2000, pp. 82−89).

Solution development phase
The students' solutions to the problems they had defined were identified from the essays with five variables (Variables 5−9 in Table 3 The student thinks that a discussion of the situation is a solution for the problem. The justification for the problem is scored as moderate because the student does not consider what the client thinks or hopes in the situation. The student had defined the problem (elderly people's use of alcohol) beforehand without asking the client's viewpoint on the matter, which should usually be done in social work (see Jaatinen, 1995;Heinonen & Spearman, 2001, pp. 149-168). The student also attempts to find a verbal solution to the problem by presenting the client questions that can be answered only with either a "yes" or "no". Nevertheless, the problem-solving process in client work should be based on an open approach in which a social worker presents open questions to the client and provides the client with a lot of space to define the problem and search for a solution to it (see Jaatinen, 1995, 99−126). By contrast, in a closed approach a social worker defines the problem and its reasons, and searches for solutions to the problem beforehand by his/herself without listening to the client's opinions. The student has not justified his/her verbal solution at all; thus the solution is scored as poor.
In the sixth extract the student justifies discussion (see Variables 6 and 8, In this extract, the student would primarily search for information about the situation from the client. Heinonen and Spearman (2001, 153) state that in social work the client is usually the best informant when missing information should be added. The social worker will be expected to use her/his skills to support the client's know-how in the solving of her/his problems in an effective, ethical and reasoned way (Heinonen & Spearman, 2001, pp. 171-172;Parton & O'Byrne, p. 2000, 68). In addition to the discussion with the client, the student should also have a discussion with the client's relatives, so as to ensure that their viewpoints are heard as well.
In the analysis, attention was also paid to the students' construction of alternative solutions (Variable 9,

Solution evaluation phase
The places in which the students assessed the advantages and disadvantages of both their own (Variable 10,

Statistical analysis of the students' essays and questionnaires
Pre-and post-tests within the two experimental and one control groups were compared with a non-parametric Mann-Whitney test. Parametric tests could not be used because the amount of data in the three groups was small and the values of the dependent variables were not normally distributed (see Bland, 1988, pp. 216-224, p. 238; Gall, Borg, & Gall, 1996, pp. 399−403).

The questionnaires were analysed both quantitatively (Likert scales) and qualitatively (content analysis of the open answers). A non-parametric Mann-Whitney test was
used to compare the means between the online and face-to-face groups.
The coding system has been developed during a long period and over many rounds of coding by one researcher. An inter-rater reliability test was made for 15% (11 essays) of the data for the variables except for Variables 5 and 7, which differ from the other variables in their nature. The agreement percentage was 68.
Journal of Comparative Social Work 2013/1 21

Representations of the problem
The students in the face-to-face group noticed the clients' close persons' perspectives better in their post-tests than in their pre-tests (Means 1.4 vs. 1.9, Table   4). All in all, the students in all groups noted well the client's close persons' perspectives, both in the pre-and post-tests. The values in all the groups were a Value 1 (somehow observed) or a Value 2 (well observed, see Table 3, Variable 4). There were no significant differences between the pre-and post-tests in the students' level to define problems in the online and face-to-face groups, while in the control group the students' level to define the problems decreased (M = 1.6 vs. 1.1) significantly.

Students' solutions for the problem
In the solution development phase, the students in the online group justified their behavioural solutions better in their post-than in their pre-tests (Means 1.2 vs. 1.6).
In their post-tests, the students used more ethical principles in justifying their Journal of Comparative Social Work 2013/1 22 solutions than in their pre-tests. Table 5 shows the level of justification and the construction of alternative solutions in the students' essays.  to-face group 3.5 vs. 2.7; and control group 3.9 vs. 5.6.

Students' evaluations of solutions for the problem
The students evaluated both their own and alternative solutions quite similarly in the pre-and post-tests in all groups, and no statistically significant differences were found between the pre-and post-test results (Table 6).

Students' opinions about the role-play simulations
The students in both groups assessed the utility of the role-play simulations in terms of their learning as quite good, with the mean values from 2.5 to 3.8 (see Table 7).
Furthermore, the students in both groups assessed the role-plays as most beneficial for developing their teamwork and communication skills (M = 3.4 and 3.8). All the students felt the role-play simulation to be least beneficial for the development of their knowledge achieving-and evaluation skills, and the students' opinions did not differ significantly between the face-to-face and online groups. Table 7 shows how the students assessed their learning during the role-play simulations in the course. Note: i) The students of the control group who participated in the online role-play simulation and evaluation discussion after their post-test were included; ns. = non-significant Many students described in their open answers that the role-play simulations helped them to understand different viewpoints concerning intoxicant issues (Item 1, Table   7). The following text extracts illustrate these opinions: Nice way to learn. It gives an opportunity to consider one's own opinion and you "have to" take other people into consideration. (Student 24) The role-play was a different way of teaching and it was very useful. You had to think about things from different perspectives than just your own. (Student 26) A meaningful way to learn. It was possible to see different viewpoints and get practice in argumentation. (Student 27) Table 8 shows how the students assessed their work during the role-play simulations. In the face-to-face group, the students thought that the role-play simulation enabled them to apply theoretical knowledge to practical situations more often than the students in the online group (M face-to-face =3.6 vs. M online =2.9, U=51.5, p<.05, Statement 3 in Table 8). The students in both groups felt most strongly that they were able to utilize their previous knowledge about adolescents' use of intoxicants (Means 3.6 and 3.7, Statement 1 in Table 8).  The students were asked how they felt about the problem-solving writing tasks after having watched the problematic cases. They mentioned that even if the task was interesting, it also was challenging and that the time limit was too strict. The following text extracts illustrate these issues: Some students thought that it would have been more beneficial to try to solve the problems by discussing in small groups than by writing individually, and the next extract portrays that opinion. The students also highlighted this issue in the feedback discussions of the course: The watching of the DVD was ok. But instead of writing I would have wanted to solve this problem, for example, through small group conversations. I also think that an intention in social work practice is to try to solve problems through collaborative team discussions. The quick analysis of the situation (that is, writing on paper) "locked me up" a little bit, and after this I felt a bit uncertain Even if many students thought that the writing tasks were quite challenging, one student described it as easy: It was easy to write and also to watch. It was nice; at least I did not have any problems in this part of the course. (Student 11)

General discussion about the results
The purpose of this study was to develop teaching methods for improving social work students' argumentation when solving ill-structured social problems, and the results of the study showed that the students improved in their argumentative problem solving. When defining the problem in the face-to-face group, the students took the client's close persons' perspectives into account better in their post-than in their pretests. Additionally, in the online group the students justified their behavioural solutions in their post-tests in a more sophisticated way than in their pre-tests.
The teaching of argumentative problem solving, however, is a challenging task, as the students only improved in two out of the 12 variables used in measuring their progress. Thus, teaching methods for improving students' ill-structured problem solving should be developed further. For example, argumentative skills should be practiced more throughout professional studies, particularly when practicing to solve social problems. In the solving of social problems, the focus is on the ethical principles of social work, which are sometimes complicated to recognize and apply in practical situations. Hence, practicing the use of arguments based on the ethical principles of social work when justifying solutions to problems encountered in social work is important.
Argumentative problem solving in social work is a complicated professional skill. In this study, the students practiced problem solving in a teaching experiment, including the use of simulated real-life cases in which they had to use their knowledge on both the ethical principles of social work and the alcohol issues. The experiment was carried out during a fairly short time period, so in order to achieve more noticeable learning results students clearly need more time than they were provided in this study to engage in problem-solving exercises and to reflect on their experiences.
In the problem representation phase, the students seemed to benefit most from the role-play simulation conducted face-to-face. In the face-to-face group, the students paid more attention to the perspectives of the main character's (client's) close persons in their post-tests than in their pre-tests. One reason for this result could be that in the face-to-face group, the peer assessment discussion was more interactive than in the online environment. Therefore, different viewpoints had possibly been considered more strongly in the face-to-face group (see also Hakemulder, 2007).
Conversely, in the solution development phase, the students in the online group seemed to benefit from the role-play simulation. The online role-play simulation seemed to advance students' skill to help justify their solutions with ethical principles (e.g. client's participation, right of self-determination) which, according to Parton (2000), should be used as the primary arguments in the problem solving in social work. This kind of high-level justification also requires plenty of time to consider the arguments. Asynchronous online environments seem to provide students with more time and larger possibilities to reread written arguments than is possible in face-toface environments (see Vapalahti, Marttunen, & Laurinen, 2010).
Evaluation of the solutions for the problems seems to be quite difficult for the students. The students in all groups primarily just listed either the advantages or disadvantages for the solutions and whether they were their own-or alternative solutions, but did not evaluate the solutions from both sides in their essays. The teaching experiment did not seem to promote the students' evaluation skills, as the pre-test and post-test results did not differ significantly. Possible reasons for that could be that the problem-solving task was quite challenging for the students, and that the time limitation in this study was strict. The students simply might have had too little time to evaluate the solutions more deeply.
The students' evaluations on both their learning and working in the role-play simulations showed that they found the role-play simulations to have benefitted their teamwork-and communication skills, and similar results were also found by Naidu, Ip and Linser (2000). Argumentation is needed in teamwork and cooperation in both multi-professional work and in the client work of social work. Consequently, it seems to be useful to use role-play simulations in social work education to provide students with practical environments for learning the skills needed in their future work.
The students thought that the lectures on alcohol and drug abuse work were very beneficial in the current study, with the lectures providing students with the substantive knowledge needed during problem solving. In this way, the lectures worked as a base for the practicing of argumentation. DeNeve and Heppner (1997) recommended that role-play simulations should be integrated into lecture teaching for applying learning contents to real-life situations, and the results of this study also support this recommendation.

The challenges of the study
It has been suggested that integrated learning environments are more effective than solely using online learning environments (Dillenbourg, Järvelä, & Fisher, 2009). In this study, the use of the online environment fostered the students' ability to justify their own solutions, which is an important result as more and more counseling in social work will be done online. Thus, problem solving and justification skills have to also be practiced online during professional studies of social work.
The progress of the development of the students' problem solving was not very extensive, which is probably due to the online and face-to-face learning environments being independent from each other. The integration of the learning environments could be strengthened by continuing the written online problem-solving process faceto-face after having first attempted to solve the problem through written argumentation in an online environment. Through these kinds of blended learning arrangements, learners may benefit from both written online and spoken face-to-face interaction (see Garrison & Vaughan, 2008, 5). It has been previously found that practicing argumentative problem-solving in a blended learning environment deepened students' argumentation and supported their multidimensional understanding of discussed issues (Vapalahti, Marttunen, & Laurinen, 2010).
The students' essay writing after they had watched the DVDs was supported with question prompts in both the pre-and post-tests. Some students mentioned in the feedback discussions that they probably would have benefited more from examples of experts' solutions to the problems. Question prompts have been shown to be more effective in the beginning than at the end of the practicing process when the aim is to develop students' problem-solving skills (Ge & Land, 2004). According to Ge and Land (2004), experts' examples about the problem solving are more effective at the end of the practicing process. Hence, the question prompts should work as support for the practicing of solving social problems at the beginning of the learning process, as well as with collaborative discussions with experts at the end of the process.
The students' answers in their feedback questionnaires revealed that some students felt that they did not get enough information about the aims of the study at the beginning of the teaching experiment. That may have caused frustration for some students, thereby particularly diminishing their motivation to write the post-test essays, which turned out to be shorter than the pre-test essays. Along with possible motivation problems, another reason for the shorter post-tests may be the students' test fatigue. The pre-test was arranged immediately after Christmas holidays, whereas the post-test was written at the end of the study period in the last study day before spring holidays. For this reason, it is quite probable that the students were more tired when completing their post-tests than their pre-tests.
Tiredness may describe the problem-solving situation of social work in a realistic way. In the worst case, overstrain and being too busy may affect social work professionals' problem-solving processes, and in that way also decrease the quality of the decisions they make in their work. Also for that reason, argumentative problem solving should be practiced during professional studies, as the internalization of argumentative thinking concerning problematic social issues presumably has an effect on high-quality problem solving in challenging social work situations.