The effect of drama activities on five-year-old childrens social skills

The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of drama activities on the social skills of five-year-old children. In this research, experimental design with pre-test/post-test control group was used. The sample group of the study consisted of 32 kindergarten five-year-old children in Fatih, Istanbul, Turkey in 2017-2018 academic year. After a random selection, 16 children (8 girls and 8 boys), were selected as the experimental group while the other 16 children (8 girls and 8 boys) were selected as the control group. In the study, General Information Form and Preschool Social Skills Assessment Scale - PSSAS were used as data collection tools. A total of 24 drama activities were administered to the children in the experimental group three times a week for eight weeks. After the completion of the drama activities, the experimental and control groups were administered the same scale as posttest and four weeks later as a retention test for the experimental group. As a result of the study, a statistically significant difference was found between the pre-test / post-test total scores of social skills of the experimental and the control group in favor of the experimental group (p <0.05).   Key words: Early childhood education, drama, drama activities, social skills.