Anonymous but noisy: interactive polling, engagement, and the limits of classroom-response data in Forum Theatre

This dataset contains the de-identified quantitative data supporting a mixed-methods study of interactive anonymous polling within Forum Theatre (Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed) in higher education. The study compares two intact undergraduate Forum Theatre classes, one augmented with anonymous classroom-response polling and one without, on a battery of communication-competence and affective outcomes measured before the intervention, immediately after, and at a delayed follow-up. Sample. 140 undergraduate students in two Forum Theatre conditions: FT_noTech (without technology, n = 64) and FT_Tech (with anonymous polling, n = 76). Design. Quasi-experiment with three measurement occasions (pre, post, delayed). One row per participant; one column per measure and time point. Variables. Communication apprehension (PRCA), cognitive reappraisal (ERQ13), expressive suppression (ERQ46), social connectedness (SCS), and metacognitive awareness (MAI), each rated 1–5; positive and negative affect after the session (PANAS15, PANAS610), rated 1–5; and a communication-knowledge test (MCQ), scored 0–10. Time point is coded in the variable name (_pre, _post, _delay). Scale scores are mean item scores; higher values indicate a stronger standing on the named construct. A full variable codebook is provided in the accompanying documentation file. Files. Paper2_quantitative_data.csv (the dataset, UTF-8); Paper2_DataDocumentation.docx (documentation and codebook); LICENSE (CC0 1.0); README.md. Ethics and anonymisation. The dataset is fully de-identified: it contains only a group label and numeric questionnaire and test scores, with no names, student identifiers, emails, dates of birth, or free-text responses. The study received departmental authorisation and written informed consent; participation was voluntary and responses were anonymised before analysis. The twenty semi-structured interview transcripts from the qualitative strand are not included because they contain potentially identifying content; they are available from the authors upon reasonable request, subject to further de-identification. License. CC BY 4.0