Investigating the Effect of Drama Education on Metacognitive Skills of Preschool Children

The aim of this research is to examine the effects of drama education on the metacognitive knowledge levels of preschool children. The research was designed using a quasi-experimental methodology, specifically a pretest–posttest control group design. The sample consisted of 33 preschool children enrolled in a public early childhood education institution affiliated with the Republic of Türkiye Ministry of National Education in the Etimesgut district of Ankara. Of these, 16 were assigned to the experimental group and 17 to the control group. Data were collected through the Metacognitive Knowledge Interview Form adapted into Turkish by Keleş-Ertürk and Tepeli (2023) and the Personal Information Form. In the analysis of the data, the Mann-Whitney U test was used for pretest and posttest comparisons between groups, and the Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test was used to analyze the changes within the experimental and control groups (pretest and posttest). The effect size were calculated with the Rank-Biserial Correlation (rB). Findings indicated no statistically significant difference between the pretest mean scores of the experimental and control groups. While the control group showed no significant change between pretest and posttest scores, the experimental group demonstrated a statistically significant increase in favor of the posttest. Additionally, posttest scores of the experimental group were found to be significantly higher than those of the control group. In light of these findings, it can be concluded that drama-based pedagogical interventions contribute positively to the development of metacognitive knowledge in preschool-aged children.