Participant views on face-to-face and online creative drama instructor/leadership program activities

The aim of this study is to determine the opinions of the creative drama instructor candidates who participated in the face-to-face and online creative drama instructor/leadership program about the program activities. In the study, the opinions of 122 teacher candidates who participated in the creative drama training program carried out by the Contemporary Drama Association in Adana, Ankara, Antalya, Burdur, Bursa, Hatay, Istanbul, Izmir and Niğde provinces were taken. These trainer candidates received some of their drama training face-to-face and some online. In the study, an explanatory sequential mixed research design was used, which allows the collection and interpretation of quantitative and qualitative data together. The qualitative data of the study were collected online with a likert-type 5-point 50-item opinion form developed according to the literature, participant and expert opinions. The Cronbach Alpha internal consistency coefficient of the form was determined as 0.987 for face-to-face education and 0.971 for online education. The qualitative data of the research were obtained through written and individual interviews with unstructured open-ended questions developed according to expert opinions. Whether there was a significant difference between the quantitative data according to gender, occupation and age was determined by non-parametric tests. Qualitative data were analyzed by word-for-word content analysis and 13 themes were created with the codes that emerged. In the study, whether the difference between the participants' views on face-to-face and online education was statistically significant was compared according to gender, occupation and age variables. According to all three variables, it has been determined that face-to-face education is significantly better than online education. With the analysis of the data obtained from the qualitative data collection tools, it was determined that both face-to-face and online education contributed positively to the areas related to learning, learning about creative drama, thinking skills, social skills, communication and values. While it was determined that face-to-face education had a positive contribution to all themes except for research skills, unlike online education, it was determined that there was only a negative opinion in the learning theme. Online education contributed positively to learning, learning about creative drama, productivity and research skills. In addition, it was revealed that online education was perceived negatively in the themes of learning, measurement and evaluation, social skills, communication, emotions, personal characteristics, and management skills. It has been suggested that creative drama should be applied face-to-face first, but in cases where it is not possible, especially the theoretical parts can be given online. Keywords: Creative Drama, Creative Drama Instructor/Leader, Creative Drama Instructor Program, Emergency Distance Education.