The Effectiveness of Creative Drama on Mental Health and Self-esteem in Aggressive Gifted Students

Background Aims of the Study: Gifted students have unique characteristics and higher cognitive competencies than normal students. This study aimed to determine the effectiveness of creative drama on aggressive gifted students’ mental health and self-esteem. Materials and Methods: To conduct the present applied research, 30 gifted female students in the ninth and tenth grades, after diagnosing aggression using the Buss and Perry questionnaires, were selected and randomly divided into experimental and control groups. Subjects then completed the Coopersmith Self-Esteem and General Health questionnaires (GHQ) in the pre-test. Subjects of the experimental group participated in the creative drama program for 12 sessions, and both groups completed the questionnaires again. Finally, the data were analyzed by Shapiro-Wilk and U Mann-Whitney tests. Results: The results showed that the creative drama intervention increased self-esteem and decreased the overall mental health score in the subscales of social dysfunction, anxiety, and depression but had no significant effect on the subscale of physical symptoms. Conclusion: The results confirm the effect of creative drama intervention on aggressive students’ self-esteem and psychological health.