Latent profiles of teachers’ beliefs about drama pedagogy and children’s social–emotional, linguistic-communicative, and cognitive performance

Introduction Although drama pedagogy is widely used as a participatory educational approach, less is known about how teachers organize their beliefs about its developmental value. The present study examined teachers’ beliefs regarding the contribution of the drama-pedagogical approach to children’s social–emotional, linguistic-communicative, and cognitive functioning. More specifically, it examined the internal structure of these beliefs, the identification of latent belief profiles, and the association of these profiles with teachers’ demographic and professional characteristics. Methods The study involved 571 primary education teachers who had previous training and teaching experience with drama-pedagogical practices. Data were collected through an adapted online questionnaire designed to capture teachers’ perceptions of the developmental functions of drama pedagogy. The analyses included an examination of the factor structure, assessment of internal consistency, latent profile analysis, and investigation of the association between profile membership and demographic and professional characteristics. Results The results provided qualified support for a three-factor organization of perceptions into social–emotional, linguistic-communicative, and cognitive dimensions, with strong positive correlations among the dimensions and satisfactory internal consistency. The latent profile analysis identified three belief profiles: a strong developmental beliefs profile, a moderate profile, and a comparatively lower profile. The profiles differed mainly in the overall intensity of beliefs and less in distinct combinations of dimensions. Profile membership was associated mainly with teaching grade or educational setting and, to a lesser extent, with gender. Discussion The findings indicate that teachers make sense of drama pedagogy as a multidimensional developmental practice, with differences in the intensity of their beliefs. The findings may inform the design of more targeted professional development programs, adapted to the teaching context and to teachers’ belief profiles.