Background and Significance:

Metaphorical communication involves making comparisons between well known and less well known concepts or objects and have been commonly used in university lectures. Teachers of the psychology of memory have drawn parallels with how a computer operates to show how human memory has a similar set of storage processes. However, students could develop oversimplified notions of psychological phenomena and erroneously view psychology as being ‘common sense’. If inaccurate teaching and learning of psychological concepts occurs when metaphors are used in nurse education, quality of health care delivery may suffer because of it.

Research Questions:

• What are the benefits and limitations of using metaphors in teaching psychology to nursing students?
• To what extent can principles of effective and less effective metaphor use be generated for teaching and learning in Higher Education?

Methods:

Three electronic literature databases were searched: PsychInfo (1990-2003), British Education Index (BEI; 1986-November 2002), and ERIC (1985-2003). The search terms included: ‘metaphor’, ‘analogy’, ‘teaching’, ‘psychology’, and ‘nursing’. The searches were restricted to English language references and adult education. After removal of duplicates, twelve records were extracted from PsychInfo, six were selected from the BEI and fifteen were chosen from ERIC. Background literature was also sourced with a focus on book publications into metaphor use in health psychology and health sociology discourses. Themes were extracted to illustrate advantages and disadvantages of metaphor use when teaching psychological concepts. The scope of the review was limited by not taking account of non-English language articles and the ‘grey’ literature of unpublished dissertations/theses and reports. There might have been variation in the questions and agendas addressed by authors of reviewed articles, yet a narrative synthesis of major cross cutting themes allowed for novel insights to be obtained.

Findings:

Students had a better understanding of how psychological theories were developed and abstract concepts were made more memorable through the use of metaphors. Student-generated metaphors provided a superior, interactive method of learning developmental psychological theories when compared with teacher-generated metaphors or in conditions when metaphors were not used. Film media have been effective in portraying abstract concepts of human motivation, individual differences and self-awareness in a metaphorical way. However, there are concerns, especially when communicating to students from other countries. Overseas students have been shown to sometimes focus on inappropriate features of metaphor content or misinterpret the lecturer’s stance on the subject. Metaphors are also problematic as they could be used to confuse, obscure reality, and may lead to stereotyping.

Practice Implications:

Recommendations from the review include asserting the need for students and tutors to be sensitised to the power of metaphor in communicating abstract concepts in a more concrete way. This awareness raising among staff and student should entail generating a common lexicon of metaphor use according to academic discipline. There should also be an acknowledgement of needing to check for linguistic and cultural differences between the communicator and the communicated.