Use of Drama Techniques among Teachers and Pupils’ Satisfaction with Extracurricular Activities in Croatia

Abstract

This paper includes results of two different research. The first one is considering primary grade teachers opinion about their competencies in Drama education. Drama art at a primary school in Croatia is taught as a part of theatre culture inside the curriculum of the mother tongue and literature and most often as an extracurricular activity. Extracurricular activities are an integral part of the Croatian educational system. Every pupil is free to choose, in addition to the regular school subjects, an extracurricular activity or more of their preference. The aim of the first research was to investigate the frequency, importance and variety of ways in which drama techniques are used in teaching. The analysis are based on the result of empirical research on a sample of 161 early primary grade teachers from 10 schools from Istra and Zagreb counties. It is proven wrong that frequency of using drama techniques in teaching is more frequent among teachers with shorter length in teaching and that frequency of using drama techniques in teaching is not more frequent among teachers with longer experience in drama extracurricular activities. This paper also presents the results of the second research about pupils’ satisfaction with basic aspects of extracurricular activities in the fourth grade of primary school. Extracurricular activities are provided by teachers in schools and partly by trainers or tutors of external courses at music schools, sports clubs etc. The research was done in eight schools in the county of Istria, Croatia. All pupils in this research (N=138) are included in extracurricular activities of some sort. In the paper, all the activities are divided in the following categories: arts, aesthetic education including literature, sports education, technical, ICT education, and others. Results consider only extracurricular activities provided in schools and show that there is a statistically significant difference in satisfaction with extracurricular activities between girls and boys. There is also a difference in satisfaction regarding the choice and type of extracurricular activities. The combining of the results in these two research gives a possibility to question how to strengthen teachers in their abilities to teach drama and perspective to analyse pupils’ satisfaction to improve teaching process.