Interactional Practices across Settings: From Classroom Role-plays to Workplace Patient Consultations

Abstract

This article investigates how learned interactional practices from an instructional setting may be utilized in the workplace setting. I examine how the same novice in a pharmacy employed the practices of sequential organization in role-played patient consultations in the classroom and in subsequent actual patient consultations in a clerkship. I first describe how the novice developed her sequential organization practices in the role-played consultations, then analyze whether and how she utilized these practices in consultations at the pharmacy. I show that interactional practices developed in classroom role-plays were later sustained, eliminated, re-developed, or further modified in the clerkship consultations. In light of the findings, I discuss the strengths and limitations of role-plays as an instructional mode and the promise of conversation analysis for longitudinal studies.