Communication skills are critical in hospice care but challenging to teach. Therefore, a hospice agency developed a communication skills laboratory for nurses and social workers.

Learners role-played 3 common hospice scenarios. The role-play modalities were in-person, Second Life, and telephone. Learners were scored on 4 communication aspects.

Learners in all modalities rated the laboratory as very effective. However, learners in the Second Life and phone modality showed greater improvements from scene 1 to 3 than those in the in-person modality. There were no significant differences in improvement between the Second Life and phone modalities.

Results support the effectiveness of this communication skills laboratory while using different teaching modalities and show phone and Second Life role-plays were more effective than an in-person role-play.