Drama Boreale - Åbo Akademi

esearch task was approached using the following questions: 1. What topic areas do the
students write about? What experiences of process drama do they highlight? 2. What
kind of learning do the students’ descriptions refer to in terms of theme? There were also
two subjects of investigation, which the researcher was interested in. What is the worth
of discussions in process drama? Is it true, as Dorothy Heathcote says, that drama is a
good means to teach different concepts, to make them familiar? This was tested in the
session Consensus. The researcher worked as the instructor of the course. The venue was
an ideal drama class.
The study is a case study where drama experiences are examined using a phenomenologicalhermeneutic
approach. The collection of data was carried out using data triangulation (video
recordings, student diaries, questionnaires). In addition to writing a diary, students filled in
questionnaires on educational drama before and after the drama sessions. All the drama
sessions were video recorded. The subjects consisted of 27 third-year students (21 females
and 6 males), 25 of which were studying to become primary school teachers (grades 1-6). 11
of them (5f and 6m) studied in order to become also drama teachers. For the study they were
divided into two groups. The drama sessions were preceded by lectures presenting the main
concepts and stages in the development of educational drama. The planning and
implementation of the drama sessions followed the Heathcote/Bolton tradition, the so called
“Newcastle school”´( Bolton 1979, 1992; Wagner 1999;

O’Neill.
1995; Neelands & Goode;
2000; Bowell & Heap 2001). The model for every session was adapted from Pamela
Bowell’s drama work called Ishi, the theme of which is outsider. This research was done in
an attempt to map out the areas which had offered learning experiences. With regard to the
themes selected, the study also sought to find out what kind of learning could be considered
to have taken place in qualitative terms.
Process
drama
offers
diverse
and
very
individual
experiences
Process drama proved to be a rich working method. Students wrote intensively about
their experiences. On the basis of an analysis of the diary entries, five areas of
significance were formed to include any accumulated learning experiences: the theme
dealt with, teacher hood, educational drama, self reflection and evaluation of various
matters that arose.
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