Higher education institutions play a fundamental role in the modern knowledge society for collective and individual prosperity. The current complex world and challenges coming in the future require higher education to prepare students for a world of rapid change, unpredictability and instability (Barnett 2004; Beck 1992; Stehr 2001; Rosa 2013). This fact has led numerous researchers and education policymakers to emphasize the importance of so-called 21st Century Skills, Generic Skills or Generic Graduate Attributes (Barrie 2007;Barrie & Prosser 2004; Braun et al. 2018b; Pellegrino & Hilton 2012; Trilling & Faden 2009), which are seen as essential skills to function and participate in the modern world. Preparing 21^st century students with discipline-specific knowledge is not sufficient to cope with future challenges since the future is unpredictable. The rapid social transformations in variousspheres of life lead to the question, how the higher education should be to prepare students for the “unknown future” (Barnett 2004)? Furthermore, the fact that the world of work and expert knowledge are changing at a rapid pace as well as the unpredictable dynamics in community relations lead to the obvious assumption that a number of skills such as problem-solving ability, critical and analytical thinking, creativity, communication skills appear to be the essential and future-oriented competencies. An undisputed assumption is that an active citizen who is able to contribute to social, cultural and economic progress and cope with unpredictable challenges is equipped with these skills, especially with communicative skills since communication is a key instrument for coordinating social action and community relations. Educational policymakers and numerous researchers emphasise the role of communication skills as an important learning outcome and educational objective (Griffin et al. 2012; European Commission 2019: 11 ff.). Higher education system is responsible for facilitating a set of generic and person-centered skills. From the holistic understanding of education (“Bildung”), education means much more than quantitative accumulation of factual and discipline-specific knowledge. In higher education, students need to be prepared for the unpredictable future and job requirements and be able to act in complex situations.

The following research question arises: Which learning formats are suitable for facilitating holistic education? The intention of our poster presentation is to illustrate our ongoing research on role-playing as an educational technique and its implementation in higher education to promote communicative competence and problem-oriented thinking. This method had its first implementation in 11 different German higher education institutions. We will present our continuing research project with an overview of its theoretical and methodological framework.

In regard to communication skills, we face the following research question: What learning approaches and methods in higher education are appropriate for preparing students for complex, unpredictable communicative demands and challenges in professional and social life? In our research project, we investigate the method of role-playing with regard to its potential to initiate autonomous and problem-oriented thinking, to make situational decisions and to apply communicative skills in the context of specific job requirements. Using the role-playing method previously implemented and tested in 11 different German higher education institutions (6 universities, 4 universities of applied sciences, 1 private college), we are focusing on investigating the quality of learning processes in the context of transformative learning theory (Taylor & Cranton 2012). The method we are using can be considered as a learner-centered approach in the light of the so-called “shift from teaching to learning” (Barr & Tagg 1995). Role-playing simulates specific types of job-related and real-life situations in which students perform a defined role and interact in fictional environment (Braun et al. 2018). By using various role-play scenarios, this performance-based learning technique aims to encourage students to act in unknown situations and transform knowledge into appropriate decisions under given realistic conditions. Numerous researchers across different disciplines in higher education describe the role-playing method as an effective learning technique (Chernikova et al. 2020), although various aspects related to the quality of learning processes remain unexplored.

Our research project aims to investigate the effectiveness and holistic nature of the learning process by participating in role-plays. The study focuses on the question, to what extent can experiential and simulation-based learning initiate holistic and person-centered learning processes in the context of communicative skills, problem-oriented thinking and action competence. The aim of our contribution is to present our current research project by giving an insight into the research design with its theoretical and methodological framework. Our research design is framed with qualitative approach as we focus on in-depth exploration of the quality of learning processes and implicit cognitive patterns initiated through role-playing. The study will be conducted during the summer semester 2021. The students of the teacher education program will be used as participants of the study. The role-plays will be conducted via online learning environment. We consider our poster presentation as a relevant opportunity to share the current state of our research with the scientific community.

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