The Effect of Drama Education on Enhancing Critical Thinking Through Collaboration and Communication

This study explores how collaboration and communication in drama education enhance students’ critical thinking skills, guided by the core literacy framework (5Cs): collaboration, communication, critical thinking, creativity and cultural awareness. This framework, recognized as a foundation for 21st-century learning, forms the theoretical basis for the analysis of how group dynamics and expressive activities in theater contribute to cognitive and social skill development. Using a mixed-methods approach, this study surveyed 98 university students and conducted in-depth interviews with 15 participants to gather both quantitative and qualitative data. Regression analysis revealed significant positive effects of collaboration (b = 0.436, p < 0.001) and the interaction between collaboration and communication (b = 0.236, p = 0.001) on critical thinking. Qualitative findings corroborated these results, highlighting how structured collaborative practices systematically cultivate multiperspective analysis, problem solving and evaluative thinking. The findings underscore the synergistic relationship between collaboration and communication, emphasizing their combined role in cultivating critical thinking. Additionally, the study demonstrates that gender and role diversity influence how students develop core literacies, with female students excelling in emotional expression and communication, while male students show strengths in creativity and originality.