Date of Conferral
2-20-2024
Date of Award
February 2024
Degree
Doctor of Education (Ed.D.)
School
Education
Advisor
Debera Balthazar
Abstract
Role play has been recently studied in high school and college settings. The purpose of this study was to examine role play in an elementary-level classroom. Role play leads to increased student engagement. Early elementary school teachers’ perceptions about the benefits and challenges of using role play to support student engagement were investigated in this study. The 12 participants were kindergarten through third-grade teachers who have experience with role play in the classroom. Kolb’s experiential learning theory was used to explore role play benefits and challenges. Using semistructured interviews, data were analyzed using Quirkos software to identify themes to the research questions. The resulting themes for the benefits of role play were: (a) student engagement, (b) life skills, and (c) understanding academics. The resulting themes for challenges of role play were: (a) time, (b) administration, (c) disruption, and (d) classroom management. Elementary teachers may benefit from the results of this study by having knowledge of the benefits of role play and be able to find ways to overcome challenges for using role play.
Recommended Citation
Ceballos, Hannah, "Elementary School Teachers’ Perceptions on the Use of Role Play to Support Student Engagement" (2024). Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies. 15428.
https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/15428
