The Effects of Creative Drama on Self-Awareness Intelligence in Preschool Children

Abstract

With the continuous development of modern education, self-awareness intelligence has become an important foundation for children's social adaptation and lifelong learning. Early childhood is a critical period for the formation of self-awareness, emotional understanding and self-regulation. Creative drama, as an experiential and interactive teaching method, provides children with opportunities to explore themselves through role-playing, improvisation and situational interaction. In creative theatre activities, teachers guide children to express their emotions, reflect on their experiences, and understand their relationships with others, thus promoting the development of children's self-awareness intelligence in a natural and fun way. This study explored how creative theatre can be used with preschool children to enhance their self-awareness development. 44 preschool children participated in a 16-week intervention designed to enhance their development in four domains encompassing Appearance Cognition, Self-Esteem, Reflection, and Emotional Cognition. One group received an educational theatre curriculum based on life education theory (n=22), while the other group received a standard teaching curriculum (n=22). The study suggests that creative theatre teaching is an effective educational approach to promote the development of self-awareness intelligence in young children. Therefore, this study concludes that in creative drama activities, young children use cooperative learning and peer interaction as the main ways to explore themselves and understand others through role experience and contextual construction, and gradually develop an understanding of their own emotions, behaviors and abilities through expression and reflection. This not only helps to improve children's self-knowledge, but also promotes the comprehensive development of their social and emotional abilities.