A comparison of the effects of action goal-oriented sociodrama and cognitive goal-oriented sociodrama on adolescents' locus-of-control, self-concept, and social skills

Action and cognitive goal-oriented sociodrama were examined to determine their relative effects on locus of control, self-concept, problem-solving and sharing. Forty-two boys and girls, 15 and 16 years old, were randomly selected from a city-wide population of 300 African American students, and assigned to one of 3 groups: (a) action sociodrama, (b) cognitive sociodrama, and (c) no treatment control. Following participation in eight hours of cognitive sociodrama, the cognitive group provided significantly more problem-solving strategies on the Means-End Problem-Solving Procedure (MEPS) than the no treatment control group. Following participation in eight hours of action sociodrama, the action group showed no significant differences from the cognitive and control groups on any of the measures. The cognitive, action and control groups did not significantly differ from each other on the Nowicki-Strickland Internal-External control Scale, the Piers-Harris Childrens' Self-Concept Scale or the experimenter-designed sharing measure. A pretest-postest examination of the locus of control scores revealed that all of the groups increased in an external, rather than internal direction. This finding greatly differs from action sociodrama investigators' reports that their method significantly increases internal locus of control and positive self-concept in African American children. The greater methodological rigor of the present study may account for these differences with earlier, less controlled research.