Nic Fryer

This article describes how ‘capstone’ assessments were created to provide two different student groups, nursing and performing arts students, with a lived experience of learning together about their own fields of practice. Capstone assessments combine ‘live’ human simulation with self‑reflection and peer review. A capstone assessment is the integration of a body of relatively fragmented knowledge and learning to form a unified whole and can be used as a transitional assessment and a bridging experience to connect knowledge between modules or courses. The capstone assessments involved two faculties and four modules, three nursing and one performing arts. Case studies were designed to represent real-life situations that students were likely to encounter during their careers, either playing a patient as an actor or performing a caring role as a nurse. Assessments for the capstone simulation were formative, and involved the students engaging in self-reflection and peer review. Videos were available to enhance the self-reflection and peer-review process. Evaluation was undertaken through verbal feedback during debrief, written feedback, video footage and nursing student and acting student peer review. The experience of capstone assessments for two diverse student groups provided valuable learning from their own and from a different group outside their subject area.

This article will explore the development of communication training within nurse training. Beginning by outlining current thinking around this practice, it then discusses Schön’s notion of reflective practice and its frequently cited relevance to nursing before pointing out some of its limitations. In particular, it looks at the limitations of the individual being able to critically reflect on their self within a broader social context. Drawing on the theories of Habermas and Bourdieu, it suggests that encouraging a greater awareness of one’s own social context, and hence of one’s own subject position, would develop a deeper awareness of other potential perspectives and a better ability to listen to patients. Finally, it argues for the use of role play in assisting nurses to gain such awareness, particularly in difficult clinical situations such as end-of-life care.

In this article I attempt to interrogate some of the issues around the assessment of live work. I use a range of theories, particularly Rancière's notion of the ‘aesthetic regime’ of art, to suggest a three-pronged ontological approach to assessment that seeks to avoid the dangers of Bourdieu's and Passeron's concept of reproduction, and which instead values students' creations. Firstly, I suggest that educators should embrace the ambiguities in moments which allow for the shifting of conceptual boundaries. Secondly, I propose that in such moments a social interaction is created between artwork/student and spectator/assessor that is indicative of both the arts generally and live performance specifically. Finally, I suggest that we require students to explore the frontiers of what can be created, explored, shown and understood through performance. I conclude by using the work of the company Goat Island to offer some practical examples of what this might mean for both live performance and assessment practices.