The Effect of Creative Drama Education Method on Self-Confidence Levels of Student Nursing: A Study Quasi-experimental

Self-confidence is a concept shaped by feelings of worthiness and adequacy. To gain self-confidence, individuals need to know and discover themselves. Drama plays an important role in this process. This study examined the effect of participating in creative drama activities on the self-confidence of nursing students. The study included 112 voluntarily participating nursing students using a one-group pre-test and post-test design. Due to the large group size, participants were divided into four groups of 28. Questions about their demographic information and views on drama, as well as the Self-Confidence Scale developed by Akın (2007), were asked. The same questions and scale were applied before starting the activities and again 15 weeks later. Activities were conducted in a classroom setting, two class hours per week, covering the stages of creative drama: warm-up, enactment, and evaluation. The mean age of participants was 21.64 ± 1.91 years. Before the activities, 21.4% of participants described their mood as happy, and 28.6% described themselves as happy afterward. A score higher than 3.5 indicates high self-confidence. Internal self-confidence scores increased from 3.74 to 4.18, external self-confidence scores from 3.72 to 4.14, and total self-confidence scores from 3.73 to 4.16. The increase in self-confidence was statistically significant. However, the self-confidence scores were not significantly related to variables such as gender, living situation, and personality perception. It was concluded that nursing students had high self-confidence even before participating in drama activities, but drama activities contributed to an increase in their self-confidence.