The function of the project was explored in three different primary classes (PC) of 9-year-old students of three different national schools in Cyprus, in the context of different curricular subjects. The aim was to draw attention to what happens when using drama and alternative “as if” contexts for the purposes of enhancing children’s critical thinking on the terms that each context indicated (Simons, 2009) throughout twenty-four 80-minute workshops (eight 80-minute workshops in each class). This produced an estimated total of 32 hours of drama workshops for all classes. The workshops took place between early February 2012 and early June 2012, as the school year was coming to an end (PC1:03/02/2012- 24/03/2012; PC2:14/04/2012-01/06/2012; PC3:30/04/2012-08/06/2012) and were conducted on the school premises (PC1: assembly hall; PC2: classroom; PC3: classroom) on different days according to the availability of the school schedule and the class teachers’ timetable and preference on the subject they chose to replace with drama.
The reason I chose to conduct a case study in three educational institutions (a multiple case study with three units of analysis) was because I assumed that this would yield richer data about the impact my project had on particular groups of children and would thus give me a clearer picture of their responses in various
drama contexts (Stake, 1995). The classes of 9-year-old students were preferred because the curriculum design for that specific year and class is the most practical compared to the rest of the classes embedded in Primary Education in Cyprus and would therefore enable me to implement my fieldwork more easily. The three classes used as units of analysis were understood firstly in terms of 61 participants as students (PC1:22; PC2:20; PC3:19) and their teachers, and, in temporal terms, as the entirety of the time the participants were in the classroom. A selection criterion of the schools was that, according to the Cyprus Ministry of Education, these children had no opportunity to experience drama as part of their learning –– or even as an extra-curricular activity. This was a unique opportunity which enabled me to look at the children’s and their class teachers’ attitudes towards the whole experience, and in particular, the path towards the development of critical thinking through drama.
In general, the factors that differentiated each case are anchored in formal educational factors that determined each school as an institution and were related to the singularity of each social group of children. Both the official structures of each educational institution and the particularity of the educational modus vivendi of each social group generated the need to focus on the uniqueness of each case (Simons, 2009). Thus, I avoided researching the three schools as representative examples of institutions, and I strove to interpret the meanings of each social group in its own terms. To this end, I did not classify the project in the categories of “critical cases, extreme cases, typical cases, and heterogeneous cases” (Patton, 2002, p.452). In contrast, emphasis was placed on figuring out educational patterns
and the social relations and responses that constructed the reality of each class; the case of PC3 was an example of extensive correlations to these elements, as described in the chapter of analysis. In this manner, my aim was both to understand “how” the project functioned for each social group, as well as to interpret “why” the fieldwork was oriented or developed in the way it did (Yin, 2003, p.1).
Based on the above, my case study can mainly be characterised as
instrumental, a characterisation used where “a case is chosen to explore an issue or research question determined on some other ground, that is, the case is chosen to gain insight or understanding into something else” (Stake, 1995, p.3-4 cited in Simons, 2009, p.21). Notwithstanding, this classification does not reject the significance of intrinsic elements because a more informed picture of the area under study cannot be achieved if the idiosyncrasy of each case and its social context are not acknowledged and interpreted (ibid).
The following points epitomise the intrinsic and instrumental sub-
questions of my fieldwork:
• Intrinsic sub-questions
-What are the participants’ educational experiences? -What is the participants’ relation with drama?
-How could this fieldwork respond or be adapted to their previous experiences? -Does the process influence their social interaction? If so, how?
• Instrumental sub-questions
-How can critical thinking be framed by drama conventions? -How can I, the teacher, shape drama pedagogy to engage
students’ critical thinking?
-How can I, the teacher, use stories in order to engage students’ critical thinking?
-How do students respond to the process?
-How can we recognise instances of critical thinking in drama when they are happening?
-Why did they respond in this way?
-Is there any evidence that some children think more critically when they are emotionally engaged?
Here it is important to note that the particular phraseology of my main research question: “What happens when I teach participatory drama to upper primary students in Cyprus with the intention of enhancing their critical thinking?” touches on the exploratory type of case study given! that! it! does! not! have!clearly defined outcomes (Yin, 2003, p.15). Nevertheless, this classification does not exclude its explanatory interest due to the aim of the study to develop a theory about the relationship between drama and the area of critical thinking.