Sürdürülebilirlik İçin Drama Eğitim Programının 48-60 Aylık Çocukların Zihin Kuramı ve Empatik Becerilerine Etkisi

Abstract

This study is carried out to investigate the effects of Drama Education Program for Sustainability (DEPfS) on theory of mind and empathic skills and their views about sustainability of 48-60 months old children. It is designed according to the Nested Mixed Design which is a type of Mixed Experimental Design by using various qualitative and quantitative data collection tools. Experimental application is designed according to the quasi-experimental design with pre-test, post-test and follow-up tests in which unbiased assignment is made between experimental and control groups. Participants in the study group are selected based on criterion sampling of Purposive Sampling methods. The criterion in this study is that the children in the study group have not encountered educational practices for sustainability before. The dataset consists of 44 (experimental group: 22, control group: 22) children and their teachers and families in a public kindergarten in Çankaya District under Ankara Directorate of National Education, in the 2018-2019 academic year. DEPfS, which consists of 30 drama activities based upon 7R themes (reduce, reuse, respect, rethink, reflect, recycle, redistribute) related to sustainability activities in the early childhood suggested by OMEP, is developed by the researcher. The activities in DEPfS are applied to the children in the experimental group by the researcher for 30 days. Activities prepared by the classroom teachers of the experimental and control groups in line with the “MoNE 2013 Preschool Education Program” are continued throughout the process. Data is collected by using “Theory of Mind Scale” and “Empathy Scale for Children” for the quantitative part of the study, and using “Children’s Attitudes Toward the Environmental Scale-Preschool Version”, semi-structured interview form and research diaries for the qualitative part. Quantitative data is analyzed by Mann Whitney U, Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test and independent and dependent groups t-test, taking into account the descriptive statistics and normality test results. Qualitative data, on the other hand, are analyzed by descriptive and content analysis using NVivo11 program. In conclusion, it is found out that DEPfS application has a statistically significant effect and permanence in favor of the experimental group on children's theory of mind and empathic skills. In addition, DEPfS is determined to have a positive effect on 48-60 months old children's views on the environmental, economical, and socio-cultural pillars of sustainability.