Does Creative Drama Promote Language Development in Early Childhood? A Review of the Methods and Measures Employed in the Empirical Literature

Abstract

This systematic review of the literature synthesizes research from a number of disciplines and provides a succinct distillation of the methods and measures used to study the impact of creative drama on the language development of young children. An analysis of the merits and limitations of the reviewed studies reveals a number of methodological problems that threaten the validity, reliability, and credibility of drama research. Recommendations on how to limit these threats are offered. These recommendations can potentially help researchers design more rigorous studies that are better able to guide educators’ and administrators’ decisions about the inclusion of creative drama in early childhood curricula.