The Effect of Drama-Based Pedagogy on PreK–16 Outcomes

47 quasi-experimental intervention studies conducted since 1985; total N not obtainable

PreK-16 students in drama-based pedagogy interventions

The most-cited drama meta-analysis and the one usually quoted in arts advocacy. It is hard-paywalled and no repository copy exists, so this record carries an honest and unusual gap: the pooled effect size, its confidence interval, the per-domain estimates and the publication-bias analysis could NOT be obtained, and nobody should fill them in from memory. What is confirmed is the corpus (47 studies, all quasi-experimental, zero randomised trials) and the moderator pattern, both taken verbatim from the registered abstract. Grade C on the corpus description alone.

From the registered abstract, verbatim: "A comprehensive search of the literature revealed 47 quasi-experimental DBP intervention studies conducted since 1985. The literature showed that designs were generally weak for making causal inferences and that outcomes other than achievement were infrequently studied. A meta-analysis of this research suggested that DBP has a positive, significant impact on achievement outcomes in educational settings. Effects were strongest when the intervention (a) was led by a classroom teacher or researcher rather than a teaching artist, (b) included more than five lessons, and (c) was integrated into English language arts or science curriculum compared to other domains. Positive effects across psychological and social outcomes were found." Note the self-indictment sitting inside the abstract of the field's flagship synthesis: the entire corpus is quasi-experimental and "generally weak for making causal inferences."

Unmanaged - the corpus contains no randomised trial, so selection into drama programmes is uncontrolled throughout.

The teacher-versus-teaching-artist moderator reproduces in Lee, Enciso and Brown (2020) on an overlapping corpus (classroom teacher d = 0.89 versus teaching artist 0.31), as does the English-language-arts advantage. That later synthesis also supplies what this one does not - the measure-type moderator showing standardized tests give roughly a third of the effect of researcher-made ones.