THE EFFECT OF DRAMA-BASED ACTIVITIES ON ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY BEHAVIORS OF 60-72 MONTHS-OLD CHILDREN

Abstract

The study aimed at examining the effects of drama-based activities on environmental sustainability behaviors of preschool children aged 5-6. The participants of the study were composed of 20 volunteer children selected via convenience sampling model at a kindergarten in Kütahya in the Spring semester of 2018-2019 school year. Out of 20 participating children, 10 were in the experimental group, and the other 10 were in the control group. The activities for the experimental group were prepared by the researcher, and implemented through drama method 2 days in a week. In the control group, the activities were also prepared by the researcher in accordance with the Preschool Curriculum introduced by the Ministry of Education (MoNE) in 2013. Both activities in both groups lasted 8 weeks in total, and 16 activities were conducted in the experimental group. The data were collected via the “Environmental Sustainable Behaviors Evaluation Scale for 60-72 Months Old Children” developed by Özkan, Tuğluk and Yiğitalp (2019), and analyzed using Mann Whitney U test, Wilcoxon test, and Kolmogorov Smirnov test. The results revealed that, there was a significant difference between the experimental group's pre-test and post-test scores, and between the post-test scores of the experimental and the control groups on behalf of the experimental group.

Keywords: Sustainability, environmental education, drama, pre-school education