Drama as Research: Realizing the Potential of Drama in Education as a Research Methodology

The landscape of educational research has undergone considerable change within the last 30 years, so much so that the arts are now being looked upon more seriously as a means of collecting, analyzing and disseminating research data (Diamond & Mullen, 1999; Ellis & Bochner, 1996; Walker, Pick & Macdonald, 1991). Those in the educational research community are turning to the fields of visual arts, music and drama for assistance in expanding their repertoire of meaning malung and representing data (Finley & Knowles, 1995). We, in drama education, have much to offer education research from our wealth of experience in drama as both a process of meaning making and as a presentationalhepresentational form. Eisner (1997) claims that while the Campbell and Stanley's 1966 monograph on quasi-experimental and experimental research "represented a methodological ideal for educational research" (p. 4), by the mid 1970s influential researchers steeped in quantitative research were beginning to explore naturalistic methods. He states that, since the late eighties, "qualitative research as a category in AERA [American Educational Research Association] programs has been the fifth or sixth largest classification for papers presented at its annual meetings" (p. 4) and "is now the favored approach for doing educational research among doctoral students [at Stanford]" (p. 5). Not only is qualitative research accepted, Eisner believes the days of writing "extensive justifications" for such endeavors are gone. As the educational research community has accepted the tools of the anthropologist and ethnographer in the past quarter century, its members have expanded their research repertoire to include both quantitative research that primarily uses "number" to collect and analyze data and qualitative research that primarily uses "word" to convey meaning. Bogdan and Biklen (1982), Carr and Kernmis (1 986), Connelly and Clandinin (1988), Eisner and Peshkin (1990), Schon, (1983), van Manen (1990) and Walker (1985) have all published qualitative research texts that have been used to guide educational research practices. In the last five to ten years, however, educational research has expanded its forms beyond those of word and number. According to McLeod (1988), there are five, not two, major ways of making meaning. She claims that in education word is used in the teaching of all subjects focused on language arts; number in mathematics, science and music; image with the visual arts; gesture in dance; and sound in music. Drama integrates all five. She challenges teachers to expand their teaching repertoire to include more of the other ways of knowing and representing into their classrooms. The same chal-