The Teaching of Situational Awareness in Theatre Practice: A Matter of Horse Sense?

Thomas, Joanne (2024) The Teaching of Situational Awareness in Theatre Practice: A Matter of Horse Sense? Doctoral thesis, Birmingham City University.

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Abstract

Situational awareness is considered to be an essential skill to prevent errors in the perioperative environment (Yule et al., 2008). Currently Endsley’s (1995) aviation model is used to inform perioperative practice and teach situational awareness to theatre-practice students in higher education. However, it is argued within this study that the aviation model does not take into account the nuances of the operating theatre environment and as a result is incongruous in supporting the understanding or teaching of situational awareness in the operating theatre environment.

The study’s original contribution to new knowledge is evidenced, by addressing the incongruity in a novel way, by exploring the horse-human-relationship at an axis with Lefebvre’s (1992) rhythmanalysis. The research aim was to compare the experiences of horse-trainers and theatre-practitioners’ situational awareness to explore if this revealed any educational implications to teaching situational awareness across a range of theatre practice programmes in higher education.

The study employed a qualitative exploratory methodology which used a purposive sampling design to recruit 7 experienced horse-trainers and 6 university theatre-practice lecturers to share their perceptions and development of situational awareness in their respective fields of practice.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted using a research-participant method to allow both researcher and participant to explore their own experiences to interpret the individual narratives. Braun and Clarke’s (2022) reflexive thematic analysis model was used to subjectively and reflexively interpret the data and formulate the findings.

Four themes emerged from the reflexive thematic analysis: presence, professional curiosity, critical thinking and collective consciousness, as processes which support both horse-trainers and theatre-practitioners in developing situational awareness. Horse-trainers were found to use these processes unconsciously through their interactions with the horse, thereby becoming situationally aware. While theatre-practitioners only developed situational awareness if they moved beyond the Lefebvrian concept of ‘dressage’ and actively engaged in the themes stated above.

The study further contributes to original knowledge by reframing perioperative situational awareness to support theatre-practice students in higher education to move beyond Lefebvrian ‘dressage’. The study thereby recommends the embedding of presence, professional curiosity, critical thinking and collective consciousness, which supports the horse-trainers’ unconscious development of situational awareness, into an applied implicit curriculum which will enable theatre-practitioners in higher education to become situational analysts. To achieve this, informative educational sessions will be provided to staff on the new reframed definition of perioperative situational awareness with the aim to support the creation of an implied implicit curriculum. The aim of the implied implicit curriculum is to pay attention to modular intended learning outcomes, through the development of appropriate content, activities, assessments and reflective practices, enabling theatre-practitioners to become professionally situationally aware, in a similar way to horse-trainers.

Item Type: Thesis (Doctoral)
Dates:
Date
Event
4 October 2023
Submitted
4 June 2024
Accepted
Uncontrolled Keywords: Situational Awareness, Perioperative Environment, Theatre Practitioner, Horses, Horse Ethology, Horse-Human-Relationship, Rhythmanalysis, Lefebvre
Subjects: CAH01 - medicine and dentistry > CAH01-01 - medicine and dentistry > CAH01-01-01 - medical sciences (non-specific)
CAH02 - subjects allied to medicine > CAH02-04 - nursing and midwifery > CAH02-04-01 - nursing (non-specific)
Divisions: Doctoral Research College > Doctoral Theses Collection
Faculty of Health, Education and Life Sciences > College of Nursing and Midwifery
Depositing User: Jaycie Carter
Date Deposited: 03 Oct 2024 13:08
Last Modified: 03 Oct 2024 13:08
URI: https://www.open-access.bcu.ac.uk/id/eprint/15883

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