How Drama Education Promotes University Students’ Psychological Resilience and Self-Identity: A Conceptual Mechanism Framework

Abstract

Mental health education in higher education often relies on didactic instruction and may inadequately address students’ deeper needs for self-exploration and adaptive growth. This conceptual paper explains how drama education may foster university students’ psychological resilience and self-identity development by specifying the psychological processes through which drama-based learning operates. Using a mechanism-oriented conceptual analysis grounded in educational psychology and drama pedagogy, the study synthesises existing literature and theory to derive an integrative explanatory framework comprising three core mechanisms: role experience, emotional resonance, and reflective expression. Role experience provides psychologically safe exposure to symbolic challenge and coping rehearsal; emotional resonance supports empathy, social recognition, and meaning making through shared affective engagement; and reflective expression consolidates experience into self-narratives and self-regulatory resources through structured articulation and dialogue. The proposed framework clarifies the developmental logic through which drama education can function as a psychologically generative pedagogy, rather than merely an engaging instructional activity. It also yields testable propositions and design-oriented implications to guide future empirical research and educational practice in higher education. This framework conceptualises drama education as a pedagogical approach for psychological development, not as a clinical or therapeutic intervention.