Background: Drama in education has the characteristics of being collective, flexible, compatible, and exploratory. The academic community is increasingly aware of the advantages of drama in general education. Drama in education requires young children to interpret texts in depth and accurately express the characters’ emotions.

Aim: To explore the role of drama in education in children’s emotional intelligence development.

Method: A pre-test of children’s emotional intelligence was administered to 61 5-year-old children (age in months: 61.87±3.50) using the Children’s Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire (Teacher’s Questionnaire). Then the children were randomly divided into experimental and control groups (30 in the experimental group, 14 boys and 16 girls; 31 in the control group, 16 boys and 15 girls). The experimental group was given one drama in education intervention session every two weeks for eight sessions. In contrast, the control group was given eight regular story sessions. At the end of the sessions, a post-test of emotional intelligence was administered to children in both groups.

Results: There was no significant difference between the experimental and control groups in the pre-test of emotional intelligence, indicating good subject homogeneity; 2*2 repeated measures ANOVA revealed significant main effects of time on emotional intelligence between the experimental and control groups F(1,59) = 139.23, p < .001, η2 = 0.70. The main effect of the group was significant F(1,59) = 16.13, p < .001, η2 = 0.22. The group and time interaction effect was significant F(1,59) = 26.21, p < .001, η2 = 0.31.

Conclusions: Drama in education plays a vital role in children’s emotional intelligence.

Implications for children and families: Encourage your children to experience and express themselves through language and movement.

Implications for practitioners: When using drama in education, you can guide parents to participate. Parental involvement can extend the classroom environment of educational drama to families and create space for children to develop.

Key words: children’s emotional intelligence, drama in education, intervention study

This presentation relates to the following United Nations Sustainable Development Goals:

• SDG 3: Good Health and Well-being
• SDG 4: Quality Education