The effect of creative drama-based educational program on adolescents' social media addiction

In this study, the effect of creative drama-based educational program on adolescents' social media addiction has been investigated. During the research, a true experimental design was used, with experimental and control groups along with pre-test, post-test, follow-up measurements. The study group is composed of English preparatory class students studying at Antalya Erünal Social Sciences High School in the spring term of the 2021-2022 academic years. Prior to the research, data from 75 students were used for the validity and reliability analysis of the scales. Research data were collected through Personal Information Form and the 9-item, one-factor Social Media Addiction Scale for Adolescents (ESMBÖ) developed by Özgenel, Canpolat and Ekşi (2019). In ESMBÖ, 24 volunteer students who scored above the average were by random assignment and 2 groups (experiment and control) each of which consists of 12 students were formed; 2 boys and 10 girls, 3 boys and 9 girls respectively. A creative drama-based curriculum comprising of 8 sessions, 80 minutes each, was applied to the students in the experimental group whereas no study was applied to those in the control group. Prior to the application of the curriculum, ESMBÖ was applied as a pre-test to both groups, as a post-test to both groups after the completion of the 8 sessions and as a follow-up test both groups 8 weeks later. The Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficient of ESMBÖ has been calculated as .824. For data analysis, SPSS 25.0 was used. In the analysis of data, frequency, arithmetic mean, median, standard deviation was calculated and Kaiser-Mayer-Olkin, Barlett Sphericity, Eigenvalue, Mann Whitney U and Wilcoxon tests were used as statistical tests. The results obtained demonstrate a positive significant difference between the experimental group pre-test and post-test averages. The Creative Drama-based education program has been effective in reducing the social media addiction levels of adolescents. No statistically significant difference was found between the follow-up and post-test scores applied to the experimental group. Thus, it was concluded that the effect of Creative Drama-based Curriculum was still on during the measurements conducted 8 weeks after.