An investigation of preschool teachers' drama application proficiency perceptions and attitudes towards drama in terms of some variables

The purpose of this study is to investigate preschool teachers' drama application proficiency perceptions and attitudes towards drama in terms of some variables (gender, age, experience, marital status, type of school they work in, and the socio-economic level of the school environment). The study adopted a relational screening model. The sample was selected using a simple random sampling method. The study involved 193 preschool teachers, 177 females and 16 males, who worked in various state schools in Adana town centers in the 2018-1029 education year. Data were collected through the Personal Information Form, "Teacher as a Drama Leader and Scale of Sufficiency of Educational Drama Application" developed by Karadağ, Çalışkan, Korkmaz and Yüksel (2008), and "Creative Drama Attitudes Scale" developed by Okvuran (2000). Analyses were performed using frequencies, percentages, arithmetic means, standard deviations, t-test, and one-way ANOVA. The results showed that the preschool teachers' drama application proficiency perceptions were quite high in three sub-scales (planning drama, applying the drama process, assessing the drama process); preschool teachers' attitudes towards drama were very positive in three subscales (general attitudes towards drama, individual attitudes towards drama, critical attitudes towards drama); and a significant relationship was found between pre-schools teachers' attitudes towards drama and drama application proficiency perceptions. While there was no significant difference in preschool teachers' drama application proficiency perceptions in the planning drama sub-scale in terms of gender, age, marital status, professional experience and the socio-economic level of the school environment variables, a significant difference was detected in terms of the school type variable in favour of the teachers working in the kindergarten. While no significant difference was found in applying the drama process sub-scale in terms of marital status, professional experience, and the socio-economic level of the school environment, a significant difference was detected in terms of the gender variable in favour of females, and in terms of school type variable in favour of the teachers working in kindergarten. As to assessing the drama process sub-scale, a significant difference was found in terms of gender, age, marital status, professional experience, school type and the socio-economic level of the school environment variables. Pre-school teachers' attitudes towards drama were found to show no significant differences in terms of gender, age, marital status, professional experience, school type and the socio-economic level of the school environment variables. Keywords: Drama proficiency perception, attitudes towards drama, drama in education, pre-school teacher