Improving the Perception of Self-Sufficiency towards Creative Drama

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of a Creative Drama Based Perception of Self-sufficiency Skills Training Program on 2nd grade bachelor degree students’ (who are attending a preschool teacher training program) perception of self-sufficiency. This is a quasi-experimental study. Totally 50 students were equally divided into two groups as they are experimental group and control group. Experimental group has attended to 24 sessions of a course as creative drama based training program. The training program was performed by involve in four elements of Bandura’s self-sufficiency as they are; performance success, indirect experiences, verbal persuasion and emotional states. It has been prepared to promote students’ perception of selfsufficiency skills. Perception of Self-sufficiency Towards Using Creative Drama Technique (PSCDT) has been offered as pre-test and post-test to both groups in order to obtain the data. It has been found that there was significance on behalf of experimental group in the end of this study (p< ,05).


Introduction
Modern education mentality, which is currently replacing traditional education mentality, teaches children how to reach the information rather than making them store it.This has led to the use of creative drama, which is considered to allow individuals to be creative and productive and learn by doing and experiencing (i.e. to contribute to the improvement of all aspects of individuals) (Kaf, 2000).Creative drama is a process ("as a game") that, where an experience, event, idea, abstract concept or a behavior are animated or interpreted by some techniques such as improvisation, acting a role etc. (San, 2002).Drama is used as an effective technique, nowadays.Creative drama offers some acquisitions as creativity, imagination, socialization, self-confidence, original identity and courage (Tekerek, 2007).Creative drama is a subbranch of educational drama technique and supports children's creativity (Siks, 1983).
Educators should be well equipped and have sufficient knowledge, enough self-sufficiency and self-belief on creative drama in order to use this technique efficiently.There is a strong relationship between self-sufficiency and success (Adiguzel, 2000).Therefore, we can see the concept of "self-sufficiency" in education, frequently.People who have a high level of self-sufficiency are eager to be successful.So, they endeavor more (Ercapan & Demirel, 2011).Bandura (1977) defines the concept of self-sufficiency as; "People's view towards their abilities to control the events which have effects on their own life".Self-sufficiency has effects on educators' setting goals, approaches against new teaching strategies, resisting the challenges which occur in educational processes, classroom management strategies and approaches against failing students (Ross, 1994).Educator who believe that they are sufficient in teaching, have a high level of self-sufficiency at the same time (Bandura, 1997).
Allowing students of any age to learn by experiencing, this method also teaches them what to do, how to use their knowledge, how to keep themselves calm and under control, and even how to relieve themselves psychologically when they encounter a problem by creating environments for use of knowledge and roleplaying (Levent, 1999).Creative drama is used in education in two ways: (1) use as a means; (2) use as an end.Its use as a means refers to covering any subject, event, or unit of education through creative drama whereas its use as an end refers to teaching drama.In both cases, the purpose is to contribute to the participant's personal development and communication skills and to make him enjoy the art of drama.Creative drama practices involve active ways of learning such as leaning by doing and experiencing, discovery learning, social learning, and learning through movement (Ozturk, 2001).Wherever it is practiced, creative drama is considered to be a learning method, a means of expressing oneself, or as an art form.The power brought by belonging to a community or a group and the improvement of communication and problem-solving skills are among the important dimensions of creative drama (Yegen, 2003).The use of drama in education has positive effects on individuals.The individual has an improvement in his empathy skills as well as his cognitive, language, motor, and social development, learns how to express himself comfortably, becomes more eager to learn, starts to play an active role in the education process, acquires creativity, has a multifaceted perception of life, becomes more willing to search, and has an improvement in his senses of cooperation, solidarity, and sharing as well as his selfefficacy perception (Adiguzel, 2000;Gonen, 2010).
As rapidly changing social structure and rules make it difficult for children to adapt to themselves and their environments; attention is focused on academic learning in the Turkish education system; and teaching is mostly based on knowledge transfer (Kara & Cam, 2007), teachers' high self-efficacy perceptions make the acquisitions of creative drama practices more functional.Experimental studies have investigated the effects of education programs based on drama and creative drama methods on the teaching of scientific concepts, language, science and technology, and social skills (Arieli, 2007;Kara & Cam, 2007;Gullu, 2009;Hendrix, Eick & Shannan, 2012;Keshta, 2013).It is believed that, drama will effect or influence teacher candidates' perception of self-sufficiency positively, because of drama's containing freedom in its soul, having many facilities and being used as a modern teaching method.There is no recent study related to promoting preschool teacher candidates' perceptions of self-sufficiency as an experimental study.Educators and teacher candidates should have sufficient knowledge related to this technique and should have high level of perceptions towards implementing the technique.Educators' behaviors have effects on students' success and learning (Brickhouse, 1990;Moren & Hoy, 2001).Considering the contribution of self-efficacy belief to the teaching profession and the structure of creative drama, it is deemed important to introduce this kind of a study to the literature.

Research Questions and Purpose of the Study
The purpose of this study is to promote students' perceptions of self-sufficiency towards creative drama, who are currently attending a preschool teacher training program.For this purpose, different learning experiences which support to promote perception of self-sufficiency towards creative drama and includes different cases of 2 hour sessions for each 12 weeks (totally 24 hours), were offered to the students.In order to reach the aim of this study, the following research questions have been addressed * Does "Creative Drama Based Perception of Selfsufficiency Skills Training Program" have any effect on students' perceptions of self-sufficiency towards creative drama?

Study Model
The study aimed to promote the self-sufficiency of students will be trained via the "Creative Drama-Based Self Sufficiency Training Program", and, therefore, the pre-test/post-test experimental design with a control group was used.The pre-test/post-test design with a control group gives the researcher a strong statistical power, enables interpretation of findings within the causation context and is frequently used in behavioral sciences (Buyukozturk, 2009;27).Table 1.shows the symbolic representation of the model.

Study Group
Participants were students who were attending a preschool teacher training program at a faculty of education.They were 2 nd grade bachelor degree students.50 students participated in this study and they were taking a drama course at the same time.They were equally divided into two groups as they are control group and experimental group.
Convenience Sampling method was used in order to decide the sample.The groups were already attending preschool teacher training program and had enough participants.And also it was so practical to be studied and to be obtained the data (Creswell, 2008).

Data Collection
A scale named "The Self Efficacy Beliefs Scale towards the Using of Creative Drama Method" was implemented.It was developed by Can & Canturk-Gunhan (2009).It has totally 47 items and only one factor.It is a likert-type scale.It has 5 choices for each items as they are; "Strongly Disagree", "Partially Agree", "Moderately Agree", "Highly Agree" and "Strongly Agree".Its coefficient of Cronbach's Alpha is ,96.We can say that it is valid and reliable.

Developing the Creative Drama Based Perception of Selfsufficiency Skills Training Program
It was aimed that, promoting the four elements of Bandura's belief of self-sufficiency as they are; performance success, indirect experiences, verbal persuasion and emotional states.Bandura (1977) stated that, four elements form the belief of self-sufficiency, as they are;  Performance success (targets reached and works done): People think, they will be successful at similar tasks when they once succeed.Success encourages people for new tasks as it is a reward.

 Indirect experiences (Others' experiences):
People take others' behavior as an example.They benefit others' experiences when they decide how to do the things. Verbal persuasion: Encourage or motivating speeches may provide ones taking courage or changing his/her expectations of selfsufficiency.People can have confidence in success by the words they were told, as "you can do it". Emotional states: Ones emotional state or mood at the time of acting a behavior effect the possibility of an act's coming true.
The Self Efficacy Beliefs Scale Towards The Using of Creative Drama Method (SEBSCDM) was offered to control and experimental groups before and after implementations as they are pre-test and post-test, in order to determine the perceptional changes of students' self-sufficiencies.Experimental group were offered a workshop especially based on acting a role, improvisation and discussion phases of drama by considering daily life experiences, events or cases, 4 weeks before implementations, in order to ensure them to use creative drama technique efficiently.The researchers planned various learning situations involving several different events and supporting the development of self-efficacy concerning creative drama for 24 course hours within 12 weeks besides the fourweek preparation stage.An attempt was made to improve the students' self-efficacy concerning creative drama by making them share roles in various situations, analyze the roles, work on the roles in cooperation, and reflect on their feelings and thoughts.Learning process concerning creative drama involves making analyses about events and situations, making the process achieve success, and indirect use.In the first stage, the students were motivated for the lesson through warm-up.In the second stage, the researchers offered a sample event to the students and requested them to construct the event in accordance with the phases of self-efficacy.The third stage involved formation.Improvisation, role-playing, and animation activities were performed based on the constructed situation.The fourth stage involved evaluation and discussion.Criticism-self-criticism and question-answer interactions were launched.That stage also involved talking about others' behavioral patterns, feelings, thoughts, and experiences.The fifth stage (i.e. the last stage) was relieving stage.That stage aimed to discharge the individual and relieve him physically and psychologically.An example of activity plan was shown in appendix.Experimental group participated in these activities and group continued their daily education program.
The Self Efficacy Beliefs Scale Towards The Using of Creative Drama Method (SEBSCDM) was offered to control and experimental groups before and after implementations as they are pre-test and post-test, in order to determine the perceptional changes of students' self-sufficiencies.Experimental group were offered a workshop especially based on acting a role, improvisation and discussion phases of drama by considering daily life experiences, events or cases, 4 weeks before implementations, in order to ensure them to use creative drama technique efficiently.The researchers planned various learning situations involving several different events and supporting the development of self-efficacy concerning creative drama

Data Analysis
The test of normality was performed in order to decide which test will be performed.It has normal distribution and we performed parametric tests.Independent samples t-test was used to determine if two samples (control and experimental group) have similar features before implementations.Related samples t-test is a statistical test which ensures us if the difference of two mean is significant.Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) was used to compare the pre-test and post-test results.ANCOVA ensures us to examine the correlation between the factors which are being tested if they have any effect on dependent variables (Buyukozturk, 2009).

Findings
Independent samples t-test was used in order to determine if control and experimental groups have similarities.Table 2 shows the results.
Considering Table 2, two samples mean control and experimental groups have similar features before implementations.Experimental studies require that, differences between mean of two different samples' not to be significant (Kaptan, 1998).ANCOVA was used to determine if the differences between mean of two samples after the implementations is significant.The results are shown on Table 3.

Discussion and Conclusion
The study aimed to improve second grade pre-school education students' self-efficacy perceptions regarding creative drama through creative drama practices.Within the scope of the study, creative drama practices were administered to the students after they were integrated with the components of self-efficacy indicated by Bandura (1997).It was found that the experimental group students' self-efficacy perceptions regarding drama improved through the practices.In their experimental study investigating the effect of creative drama-based practices on university students' acquisitions of social skills, Kara and Cam (2007) concluded that creative drama practices positively affect social skills.The findings of some other studies in which creative drama is associated with different samples and subjects (Saab, 1988;Kamen,1992;Akin, 1993;Uysal, 1996;Ustundag, 1997) are also consistent with the findings of the present study.As a matter of fact, the individual is not the passive receiver of knowledge in creative drama.Rather, he actively participates in the process of learning by doing and experiencing.The students improved their self-efficacy perceptions by making analyses about the events and interpreting them based on their own experiences and perspectives.Daniel and Harwell (2010) explored the self-efficacy perceptions of teachers providing education to preschool children who had experienced a critical event.They determined that the teachers with high selfefficacy provided the children with better learning.Cetingoz (2012) investigated pre-service pre-school teachers' self-efficacy levels concerning the use of the creative drama method by taking their opinions and found out that the pre-service teachers with different self-efficacy levels had also differences in terms of knowledge and skills of planning and implementing drama activities.The self-efficacy perceptions of the teachers receiving drama education differed as well.It is thought that the teachers believing that they are competent in teaching their students have high selfefficacy beliefs.In the study in which they carried out interviews with pre-service teachers, Aydin and Boz (2010) saw that the pre-service teachers regarded their lecturing experiences as the sources of their self-efficacy beliefs.Self-efficacy belief develops as the skill of achieving and teaching something increases.In their studies on different sample groups, Bloomfield andKendall (2012), Yang (2012) and Barnes (2003) found out that self-efficacy level is an important factor for enhancing a person's success.The teachers with a high self-efficacy belief can establish a sounder communication with their students, implement the innovations in teaching methods more eagerly, and insist to achieve success (Haney, Czerniak, & Lumpe, 1996;Guskey, 1987;Stein & Wang, 1988).The students in the experimental group freely expressed their experiences, feelings, and thoughts without fear by searching and criticizing throughout the practices (Tekerek, 2007).Based on the research findings and the reasons indicated above, it can be said that the learning process integrated with creative drama achieved success.
The individuals grasping the meaning of creative drama are rational individuals that can seek solutions to problems, have a high level of awareness, and know how to make sense of what is going on around them.The individuals with such high level of awareness also have a high self-efficacy level (Can & Canturk-Gunhan, 2009).Elksnin & Elksnin (1995) report that educators have recently been noting that social skills teaching should be taken as a whole within the academic curriculum.In addition, Akin (1993) and Uysal (1996) support the findings of the present study in their studies investigating the influence of creative drama on social development level.Kavcar (1985), O'Neill and Lambert (1995), and Gonen and Dalkilic (1998) state that drama is a social process and plays a role in the development of social skills by allowing social communication and group work.Individuals with developed social skills have high communication skills and developed selfefficacy perceptions.Most research shows that the individuals with high self-efficacy belief exert a great effort to accomplish something, do not easily give up when they encounter an adversity, and are insistent and patient (Umay, 2002).Improvement of pre-school teachers' perceptions of self-efficacy, which refers to a person's perception about himself, concerning creative drama will make the education process more efficient.

Figure 2 .
Figure 2. Model of Creative Drama based Perception Self Sufficiency Training Program

Table 1 .
Symbolic Representation of the Model

Table 3 .
The ANCOVA Results for the Post-test Scores Adjusted Based on the SEBSCDM and Overall SEBSCDM Pre-test Scores of the Students in the Experimental Group and Students in the Control Group