Teachers’ professional competences: what has Drama in Education to offer? An empirical study in Greece

Abstract

This article examines how the training in and use of Drama in Education (DiE) affects the development of teachers’ professional skills. The article draws on data from broader empirical qualitative research about the impact of DiE on personal, social and professional development of Greek secondary school teachers. The research was carried out using focus groups and focused semi-structured interviews with 27 secondary school teachers who had all been trained in DiE and had already integrated it into their instructional practice. As the findings clearly show, DiE has been decisive in the development of teachers’ professional profiles. Since its initial use, DiE has strengthened their professional identity, improved their instructional and organizational skills, enhanced the achievement of learning goals for all stakeholders – teachers and learners alike – reinforced their belief in the necessity of lifelong learning, and helped them develop cooperation and effective interaction in and out of the school environment.

Keywords:

• secondary teachers
• Drama in Education
• process drama
• professional competences
• professional skills

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to express their gratitude to all teachers who participated in the study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The terms Educational Drama or Process Drama are also used as synonymous in the literature.

2. Under the term primary literature lie all of the official educational policy documents which describe the teacher profession, whereas under the term secondary literature lie all of the books and articles relevant to our study. We have used both kinds in order to synthesize the most comprehensive list of professional skills serving our research questions.

3. The 27 interviewees were coded from T1 to T27 following the time sequence of the interviews taken.