The type of research method used for this study is qualitative specifically employing data collection and analysis techniques, which have been unfamiliar to many (special) education researchers (Murray, C., Anderson, J., et al., 1986, p. 15). What has been called "qualitative research" conveys different meanings to different people and presents considerable diversity as the unity of qualitative research vanishes. (Jacob, 1988, p. 16) Methods of inquiry in contemporary education are either qualitative or quantitative. The quantitative form is mainly associated with objectivity while the qualitative with subjectivity. Drama/Arts Education research refers to the specific qualitative studies in either the field of Drama-in-Education or the general field of Arts Education.

In the past, I have been involved in this qualitative method of inquiry in Drama-in-Education, and found the experience to be a valuable preparation for my thesis. One such inquiry in Drama Education specifically asked, How do Drama teachers empower their students to ask questions for learning? This small-scale study emphasized the use of Dramatic role-playing in one elementary classroom to develop students' skills in questioning. In this research, I was a participant-observer. The data consisted of transcripts of teacher-in-role with a class of senior public school (Grade 7) students.

Mainly the report was practical, contextual and interpretive containing generalizations from the analysis of data. This research also possessed traits of the scientific by the reference to a measurement in the search for the meaning. (i.e. How can we, as Drama teachers, empower our students to ask questions for learning?)

This study was successful in achieving its objectives. It could not have been conducted in any other way since the essence of Drama/Arts Education is unquantifiable: It is about process, attitudes, quality, expression, context, intrinsic, extrinsic and aesthetic learning.

To inform, inspire and strengthen the design of my qualitative research, I ran a pilot study in 1990-91. For this study, I interviewed a Child Psychotherapist, a Child and Family Psychiatrist and a senior Student in a Regional Arts Drama program, referred to me by the latter. Based on the first draft of my initial thesis proposal, I completed one interview with each of the above participants, who represented the fields of Drama, Therapy and Dramatherapy in educational and clinical contexts. The information gathered, the overall experience and insight from implementing these interviews, assisted me in the formulation of questions for my final research questionnaire and the revision of the original thesis proposal. The raw data of these interviews, however, did not contribute to the analysis component of my study.

In summary, I learned that my original, more expansive, practical methodology would have to be modified to adapt to my change in teaching assignment from a special Regional Arts Drama program in Brampton to a regular Drama program in Mississauga, in1992. As well, I learned that the focus of my research needed to be altered, reducing the eclectic range of participant categories and magnitude of the scope of data collection and analysis, thus making the method of inquiry possible to facilitate.

The pilot study served its purpose well. Through these three, initial interviews, I was able to validate my decision to focus on models of Drama teaching for my data as opposed to students in specialized, product-oriented Drama programs. I was able to envision the inter-relationship between Drama and Psychotherapy, and the concepts of intended versus accidental purpose, theatre toxicity, and Dramatherapy phobia. My commitment to unraveling the therapeutic perspective of Drama through educator/artist’s eyes clearly became my personal priority.

In this study, I have combined the following kinds of qualitative research methods to produce a structural framework of the data for analysis:

1. Narrative, Naturalistic/Descriptive, Portraiture
1. Descriptive :
1. observational
1. dialogic
1. grounded theory
1. Interpretive
1. Phenomenological

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At the onset of the research process, I compiled a list of 20 candidates for the study from the recommendations of colleagues, and my professional network in the educational field. (see Appendix A)

The list included a spectrum of candidates: a retired secondary Drama teacher, elementary teachers, a transformative theatre therapist, guidance counselors, to coordinators of Arts in Schools of the Arts, a Vice-Principal, a children’s Dramatherapist, a psychotherapist and former Drama students. The list was reduced to eight, specific archetypal candidates. I was satisfied that these archetypes were sufficiently diverse for the purpose of the study. Those candidates who comprised the final list, were those who were genuinely interested in the investment of their personal time for the required video-interviews, and who I believed, would see the study to completion. The final list of educational/therapeutic archetypes included the following:

1. An author (former Ontario Youth Commissioner)
2. A kinesiologist (former Drama student)
3. An artist/educator of physical theatre
4. A secondary school Drama teacher
5. An English as a second language (ESL) teacher (former actor)
6. An elementary school teacher, textbook author, AQ instructor of Drama
7. An artist/educator specializing in mask, mime and conflict resolution
8. A university professor, specialist in Dramatic Art.

Each of these experts for the purpose of my study had a unique and significant "starting point" from which they became committed philosophically to the value and practice of Drama-in-Education. I have identified them in Chapter Four by their surnames (see section 4.2: Classifying the Data), and in alphabetical order. For my interpretion of the data (see section 4.1) however, I have used a more appropriate and informal style of identifying them by their first names.

(Ken) Dryden, as an author and researcher had been an observer of students in a senior Drama class for a year at a Secondary School in the Peel District School Board (T.L. Kennedy Secondary School). He spent a fair amount of time "trying to get to know the drop out and what might be done to change that". (Julie) Hard was a Drama student at my school for four consecutive years.

(Stephen) La Frenie, an artist in the classroom, for over twenty years, had the most experience of the group with Drama as Therapy due to his association with an acting teacher, Gary Pogrow. La Frenie naturally empathized with the needs of students from his own challenges with shyness in his youth.

(Steve) Russell provided insights from his teaching at different levels of Drama Education as well as his reasons for moving away from the Professional Theatre. Slater, a professional actor, who holds a Master of Arts degree in Drama, had studied at The Drama Centre in London, England and performed for Inner City Youth while searching for a more "organic experience" than the Theatre offered him.

(Larry) Swartz represented Elementary Education. He had discovered the richness of Drama in his passion for using Drama as a tool for the enrichment of learning in the Language Arts in education.

(Naomi) Tyrell contributed her expertise to the study through her experiences with a spectrum of students from both the Secondary and Elementary Panels in Education, from physically challenged to "tough" teens. She had found, through her personal learning challenges, that Mime, Mask, Song were tools that "made a difference".

(Bernie) Warren, who is a Ph.D. and instructor at University, represented the Post Secondary level of Drama Education. Calling himself a Drama specialist, rather than a Drama "therapist", he has had a lengthy history focusing on Drama as a helping medium in his university studies, his teaching, and from his working in Theatre for Change. The identified participants of this study created a cross-section of experts who, in my informed consideration, would successfully represent the main categories and levels of education.

There were considerations that affected the establishment of the following five main parameters of the study. They were:

1. The duration of the complete study would be no more than one year from the end of the full interview process.
2. The setting for the interviews would be in the uninterrupted and comfortable atmosphere of my home and/or the homes of the participants.
3. The voluntary nature of the interviews would affect the scheduling of interview appointments.
4. The initial interviews would be a maximum of 90 minutes long, limited to two meetings with each participant. The length of the updates for any of these interviews would be based on the extent of the new information supplied.
5. There would be a maximum number of eight participants. Gender, age, ethnicity, disability would not be criteria for their suitability in the study.

I then followed the steps as outlined below:

1. The pilot study.
2. The questionnaire preparation process:

a) The formulation of questions ensuring that the ones in the questionnaire relate directly to the objectives outlined in the rationale of the proposal and that they would focus on:

l Perceptions and definitions of Drama as Therapy/Dramatherapy in education,

l Identification of therapeutic modes, techniques in (their) classrooms,

l Identification of those personal development and social skills learned through involvement in Drama,

l Recognition of the role of teachers as helpers in a therapeutic frame.

b) The field-testing of the questionnaire.

3. The identification process (a maximum of eight participant/experts in the field).
4. The selection process: preliminary communication with participants (inviting their participation in the study) and the formal procedure of ethical review.
5. The field work process: interviewing, videotaping, dubbing, updating of interviews.

(a) Interviewees: eight teachers/artists to provide individual narratives for analysis.

(b) A Group Forum after the completion of all interviews to provide further material for analysis.

6. The transcription process (from the videotaped interviews).
7. The interpretation process: emergent themes identified and analyzed for their significance to the study.