The effect of creative drama activities on empathic tendency and social skill levels

The aim of this study is to examine the effects of creative drama activities on primary school students' social skills and empathic tendency levels. The study group of the study consists of a total of 20 students, 11 of them in the experimental group, 9 from the Hasankadı Primary School, and 9 from the control group, from Akbaş Primary School in the central district of Bartın for the 2020-2021 academic year. Creative drama activities were done to the students in the experimental group, and social skills and empathic tendency studies were made to the students in the control group in accordance with the current program. In the study, the pretest-posttest control group model was based on quasi-experimental design. The research continued for 7 weeks. In the first week of this period, pre-test and in the last week post-test studies were conducted. The application studies were formed in 2 sessions per week, with 2 course hours. Thus, a total of 20 hours of application was made, 4 hours a week. "Social Skills Scale" and "Empathic Tendency Scale" were used to obtain data. The obtained data were entered into the SPSS 19 package program and Mann Whitney U test and Wilcoxon Signed Ranks tests were performed for the analysis of the data. As a result of the research, it was determined that the social skills and empathic tendency levels of the students in the experimental group were lower than the control group before the study. After the study, it was determined that the experimental group students' social skills and empathic tendency levels were higher than the control group. As a result of the research, it was concluded that creative drama activities were more effective in increasing the social skills and empathic disposition skills of primary school students.