EFFECTS OF A CREATIVE DRAMA ASSISTED PSYCHOLOGY COURSE ON STUDENTS’ SOCIAL ANXIETY, LEVEL OF EMPATHIC TENDENCY, COMMUNICATION AND ASSERTIVENESS SKILLS

Abstract

Some areas of education place students at the centre of learning; for example, creative drama is one of these active learning methods. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of a creative drama-supported psychology course on the levels of self-concept, social anxiety, empathic tendency, and communication/assertiveness skills of 2^nd year AÇÜ Faculty of Health Sciences Nursing Department students. For this study, a quasi-experimental research model with a control group, pre-test, and post-test design was utilized. The teaching methods suggested by the current psychology curriculum were utilized with both the control and experimental groups, and for the experimental group the identical curriculum was also supported through the creative drama method. The study was conducted on sophomore students enrolled in sections A and B of the psychology course offered in the nursing department of Artvin Çoruh University. Also, the group which was enrolled to take the drama-supported psychology course was selected randomly. It was determined that students in the experimental and control groups were similar in terms of their age, gender, family type, place of residence, level of social anxiety, empathic tendency skills, communication skills, and level of assertiveness. At the outset of the study, the number of students constituting the research group totalled 63, with 28 in the experimental group considered Class A, and 35 as a control group considered Class B; however, due to attrition from students quitting the university, transferring universities, and not completing the necessary data collection tools the number of participates decreased to a total of 47 with 19 in the experimental group and 28 students in the control group. The lessons planned for the research study were two hours a week over a period of ten weeks. The study data were collected via a "Personal Information Form", "Social Anxiety Scale", "Empathic Tendency Scale", "Communication Skills Evaluation Scale" and “Rathus Assertiveness Inventory”. Data from the study were then analysed utilizing SPSS 17.0 through number, average, percentage, "Chi-square Compliance Test", "Mann-Whitney U test" and a "Willcoxon Signed Ranks Test". In addition, expert opinion was obtained regarding the validity and reliability of the study, as well as, the "Cronbach Alpha" was calculated. Furthermore, before beginning the study, an ethics committee approval from the university, written permission of the institution where the study was conducted, and informed consent of the participants were obtained. According to the findings from this study, it was determined that the creative drama-supported psychology course brought about positive increases in the levels of students’ self-concept. It was also observed that the social anxiety scores of students in the experimental group who attended creative drama decreased. Also, the scores relating to empathic tendency, communication and assertiveness skill increased for students from the experimental group. Importantly, there was no statistically significant change in the variables in the control group. Finally, the results of this study are considered to contribute knowledge and understanding to the field of creative drama and psychology in terms use of active learning and teaching methods.

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