Puppetry as an Educational Tool in Early Childhood and Primary Education: A Practice-Based Qualitative Study with Descriptive Evidence

This article develops, in research-article form, the empirical and methodological contribution of a doctoral investigation intopuppetry as an educational tool for children in early childhood and primary education. The dissertation was designed arounda qualitative research orientation and combined a review of the scientific literature, fieldwork, participant observation,interviews, participatory workshops, and analysis of the resulting observations and educational activities. The present articleintegrates three complementary empirical cases reported in the dissertation: the educational puppet performance Un viajeinvisible; a collaborative shadow-puppetry workshop on the solar system with 46 eight-year-old pupils; and a creative-puppet workshop on concentration with 110 children aged four to eight. The cases represent three different relationshipsbetween child and puppet: reception of a completed educational performance, collaborative construction and manipulationof puppets for curricular learning, and construction and animation of a puppet inside a dramatic game. In the solar-systemworkshop, the dissertation reports an increase in correct responses from approximately 20% before the workshop toapproximately 95% afterward. Recalculation from the six item-level tables gives 24.75% and 95.67%, respectively. In theconcentration workshop, successful rope crossing increased from 47 of 110 children (42.7%) before the puppet game to 82of 110 (74.5%) while children manipulated their self-made puppets and carried a stone. The article interprets these findingsas descriptive, practice-based evidence. It does not claim a causal “puppet effect”, because the original interventions did notuse randomized controls and several components—storytelling, construction, rehearsal, movement, peer interaction andreflection—operated simultaneously.