The effect of drama structured verbal lectures on speech oriented attitude and sense of self-afficacy

This study investigates the effects of oral communication lessons constructed with creative drama on students' attitudes towards and self-efficacy in oral communication making use of an experimental design and applying pre-test and post-test. The participants are 90 freshman students who are taking the oral communication course at the Department of Turkish Language Teaching at Dokuz Eylül University, Buca Faculty of Education in the spring semester of 2017-2018 academic year. Experimental and control groups each have 45 students. The implementation process of the study lasted twelve weeks, with 2 hours of instruction each week. In the experimental group, 12 lesson plans constructed with drama were conducted, and in the control group, the lesson plans in the curriculum were followed. A speaking skills attitude scale and a self-efficacy scale were employed as a pre-test and post-test. SPSS 22 (Statistical Package for Social Sciences) packaged software was used in order to analyze the quantitative data gathered from the participants. A paired-sample t test was conducted to measure the pre-test, post-test change within the groups, whereas the comparison of the data for both groups was done via an independent-samples t test. As for descriptive statistics, arithmetic average, standard deviation and percentages are reported for each group. Cronbach alpha coefficient was employed for reliability analysis. An analysis of pre- and post-test data indicated improvement in both the control group and the experimental group. When the results for experimental and control group were compared, a significant improvement in self-efficacy beliefs and attitudes was observed for the control group. The results demonstrate that application of creative drama in lesson plans contributes to students' oral communication attitudes and self-efficacy beliefs. For this reason, effective utilization of creative drama activities in first language education at the tertiary level is recommended in order to improve students' oral communication skills.