CAPITULO 6: PLAN FINANCIERO
6.1. Supuestos Generales
The hypothesized benefits of pretend play have led to various attempts to use drama education to support the child’s development. Creative or educational drama can be defined as “an improvisational, nonexhibitional, process-centered form of drama in which participants are guided by a leader to imagine, enact, and reflect upon human experiences" (McCaslin & Schonmann, 2006). This stands as contrary to theatre, which is “audience and product centered” (Kratochvil, 2006). Many studies have touted the positive effects of drama interventions on social, physical, emotional, cognitive and language development. For instance, Kosidoy (1989) performed a study on social skills, comparing the use of creative drama with a group of 17 1st to 6th grade children
participating in a 10-week program, with a control group who did not undergo any intervention. The children in the drama program self-reported as being more confident in conflict situations than the control group. Fizzano (1999) studied 6 classes of 3rd graders split into 3 conditions (2 classes
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folktales). Both drama groups performed better on a reading comprehension test, and showed greater complexity in oral language. Investigating creative drama as a prewriting strategy of short story writing, Cormack (2003) tracked 2 grade 6/7 classes for a period of 10 weeks. Drama students received progressively better composition scores (ideas, detail, audience awareness, sentence structure, language style, plot, setting, character, and narration/dialogue) than a control group, and showed and greater enthusiasm about prewriting. Last but not least, P. R. Wright (2006) administered an in-school role play-based drama program in rural villages with 123 children, mean age of 11.5. His results showed improvements in the children’s role-taking ability, vocabulary and self-concept at the end of the program.
Amidst such positive evidence however, many review, meta-analysis and survey articles have cautioned against drawing too strong conclusions from the plethora of optimistic drama studies. In a quantitative meta-analysis of 16 studies, Kardash and Wright (1987) provided a more nuanced picture, finding extremely small effect sizes for reading achievement, and large effect sizes for roletaking abilities. However, their analysis showed that the effect sizes varied tremendously based on factors such as the type of measurements used, sample sizes, and experimental designs. Wagner (1988) reviewed “methodologically sound” studies on the effects of drama interventions on language arts (oral language development, reading, and writing), and concluded that quantitative studies generally show positive effects, except for a few studies. However, the author deplored the lack of qualitative research on the topic to contribute to our understanding of how the effects actually take place. Kratochvil (2006) did a review of meta- analyses collating research on the use of educational drama to support English language learners, and concluded that although the field’s research generally shows positive connections between drama and literacy, “the research is narrow and inconsistent; too inconsistent for decision makers to institute policy changes or to implement changes in teaching practice and strategies”.
Jindal-Snape and Vettraino (2007) reviewed papers from the year 1990 to 2005 on drama techniques to support social-emotional development of people with special needs, and found only 8 relevant studies. The findings indicate a potential for positive effects, but Jindal-Snape and Vettraino cautioned that “the authors have not provided enough evidence to substantiate their claims”. Similarly, Şengün’s and İskenderoğlua’s (2010) content analysis of 17 articles on the use of creative drama in mathematics education showed that studies generally result in positive effects on student achievement, attitude and creativity. But the authors concluded that “there were not enough creative drama studies in mathematics education”. Conversely, Conard and Asher (2010) conducted a meta-analysis that included 13 experimental or quasi-experimental studies using creative drama as teaching strategy, and found no effect on the self-concept of elementary school children under a variety of conditions.
Apart from Conard’s and Asher’s meta-analysis, other individual studies have found little to no significant effect from drama interventions. For instance, Freeman’s studies (Freeman, 2000;
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Freeman, Sullivan, & Fulton, 2003) that subjected 237 3rd to 4th grade students to either a treatment
group using creative drama, or to a control group engaging in standard music activities, over 18 weeks found that effects of creative drama were not significant for self-concept, behavior, or social skills. Some positive gains were identified, but no significant results were obtained. W. K. Mages (2008) studied the effects of a theater-in-education curriculum program on the language, Theory of Mind, and imaginative development of 155 preschool children. No significant differences overall were obtained between the intervention and the control group. Measures were taken at two points in time: on the first measurement, native English speakers outperformed English Language Learners. By the second measurement however, no difference between the two groups was detected.
Although there appears to be much evidence that drama positively affects various aspects of the child’s development, the literature is highly mixed and conflicted. A possible reason for negative results may be that unlike pretend play, which occurs within the boundaries of rules that children themselves make and private spheres that they themselves choose, drama places the focus on overt performance, leading indubitably to greater self-consciousness, and thus compromising the hoped-for benefits of the embodied process for some children. While the possible positive effects of drama interventions support our proposed approach of micro-enactment to support children’s creativity, the conflicted results open up an opportunity to improve upon such methods.
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