I first came across the narrative of ‘The Power of Stories’ when I read Daniel Willingham’s ‘Why Don’t Students Like School’ (2009). I was instantly hooked to this section of his book, since as an educator, I always relish the opportunity to tell my students a story, only possible of course when it would coincide nicely with my tightly constrained psychology specification! My absolute favourite story to tell students is about my experiences in the NHS. As a young aspiring psychologist, I was given the privilege of visiting a mental health services unit at the local hospital, where I observed and conversed with some of the patients. The students always love hearing about my experiences and it works really nicely when explaining the basic symptomatology of certain mental illnesses such as Schizophrenia and OCD.
Despite my love for storytelling in the classroom and it being such an enjoyable part of my practice, is it an effective pedagogical tool? And perhaps my second question is, should teachers include and possibly prioritise storytelling as part of their pedagogical repertoire?
The Research
Researchers pose that the pedagogical power of storytelling derives from our evolutionary past, with storytelling being strongly embedded in our culture (Landrum et al. 2019). Naturally, as social creatures, humans have evolved to interpret experiences and danger in the surrounding environment by way of hearing and telling stories (McNett 2016). The use of stories has therefore allowed for knowledge transmission over generations, with the wisdom of ancestors serving the future generations with insightful educational experiences (Landrum et al. 2019). It is therefore the ‘universality’ of storytelling that explains the great pedagogical power and potential in the classroom (Willingham 2009). After all, researchers seem to agree that comprehending material in a narrative structure is deeply internalised in our human nature, thus leading to improved learning outcomes (Willingham 2009; McNett 2016; Landrum et al. 2019). Bruner (2002) take this idea further, noting a more cognitive stance by claiming that the structural nature of stories allows for student learning and reflection. The use of stories subsequently leads to children being given learning opportunities to construct knowledge of the world but also even manifesting a process whereby students create their sense of self (Bruner 2002).
There is no doubt that storytelling is used in a wide range of educational settings, from early years to adult education and training, educators are using storytelling for the sole purpose of facilitating learners in accessing certain knowledge and skills (McNett 2016). Researchers have therefore aimed to investigate the success of improving student educational outcomes with use of storytelling as a pedagogical tool (Landrum et al. 2019). For example, Koenig Kellas (2015) claim that storytelling aids student memory retention, due to the narratives being organised into manageable chunks, as opposed to presenting information in a potentially confusing or complex manner (Kromka & Goodboy 2019). This study may highlight the importance of recognising cognitive load of students, ensuring that student working memory is not overloaded during the learning process (Sweller & Chandler 1991; Kromka & Goodboy 2019). Perhaps this finding supports the cognitive stance of Bruner (2002), that was mentioned previously.
Research has also highlighted how storytelling has been effective in linking to students’ prior knowledge, with stories matching ideas already storied in memory, thus confirming their prior beliefs on a certain topic (Schank & Berman 2002; Kromka & Goodboy 2019). This links with Willingham’s (2009) argument, in that stories aid an “effective web of associations”, whereby students may recall the intentions of a main character which can lead to successful recall of learning concepts. This idea that storytelling supports schema theory has been highlighted in many studies, where stories are shown to improve the quality of students’ schemas (Lee & Tsai 2004). It has also been found that the more stories that students are exposed to leads to a considerable increase in opportunities for enhancing schemas (Lee & Tsai 2004).
A study that I wanted to delve into deeper, was conducted by Kromka & Goodboy (2019) in the United States. They compared results of two main conditions using an undergraduate student population, where students were either lectured based on summarisation of key points that fit a story narrative, or alternatively, were lectured by reviewing key points without a story narrative. I found their results extremely thought provoking and have listed them into three basic bullet points below:
Students in the story-telling condition…
1. Were more likely to like the lecturer more and take the course in the future
2. Sustained more attention and performed better on performance tests
3. Remembered finer details of the story that were unrelated to the lesson content
This study may therefore reflect a strong argument for the use of storytelling as a pedagogical tool. For instance, this study supports some of the claims made by Willingham (2009) and others mentioned above about the improvement in lesson retention due to the use of storytelling (Kromka & Goodboy 2019).
Despite the study highlighting some positive aspects of storytelling as a pedagogical tool, Kromka and Goodboy (2019) also identified several significant limitations. For example, the study highlighted a potential “double-edged sword” effect whereby story-telling increases recall but also extraneous load during the process (Bolkan 2017; Kromka & Goodboy 2019). Students were able to recall small details of the story that were unimportant for learning outcomes, leading to the possibility of further recall becoming compromised (Kromka & Goodboy 2019). Unfortunately, the study relied on a 5-item quiz and an undergraduate sample, indicating the need for more comprehensive recall measurements and a more diverse, relevant sample beyond higher education populations.
An issue that has been widely discussed by many educators has been the use of certain pedagogical techniques and how these interrelate with the professionalism of a teacher (Brookfield 2017). In this study, a positive finding was recorded in regard to students’ perceptions of the instructor, however researchers have raised caution over the idea that the instructor might overuse storytelling, which could have some negative effects on the classroom (Brookfield 2017; Kromka & Goodboy 2019). For instance, Brookfield (2017) has discussed the impacts of power dynamics and cultural sensitivity in the classroom.
Summary
It is fair to say that I seize every opportunity to use storytelling in my classroom. I have always found it a useful pedagogical tool and the students have always been left wanting to hear more when leaving my lesson. Looking at the research in more depth, I found myself smiling at the positive review that storytelling has in the literature. From more longstanding research such as Willingham’s (2009), to more recent investigations such as those by Kromka & Goodboy (2019), storytelling appears to be not only effective for linking to student’s schemas, but also helps with lesson material retention. However, I think it is fair to say that storytelling is no golden ticket and should be used with caution. We are firstly unsure on whether storytelling really improves long-term memory retention over a longer period. With large GCSE and A-Level specifications, can our students cope with the added cognitive load of a story added to the mix? The final question that we should consider is related to professionalism. Despite storytelling be an enjoyable process for all, is there scope for a minority of teachers to overuse storytelling as part of the pedagogical repertoire, perhaps inadvertently blurring the professional lines between teacher and student?
References
Willingham, D.T., 2009. Why students don’t like school. San Francisco, CA: Jossey.
McNett, G., 2016. Using stories to facilitate learning. College Teaching, 64(4), pp.184-193.
Landrum, R.E., Brakke, K. and McCarthy, M.A., 2019. The pedagogical power of storytelling. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology, 5(3), p.247.
Kromka, S.M. and Goodboy, A.K., 2019. Classroom storytelling: Using instructor narratives to increase student recall, affect, and attention. Communication Education, 68(1), pp.20-43.
Sweller, J. and Chandler, P., 1991. Evidence for cognitive load theory. Cognition and instruction, 8(4), pp.351-362.
Lee, C.B. and Tsai, I., 2004. No Kidding-Exploring the Effects of Stories through the Window of Schema Theory. Association for Educational Communications and Technology.
Bolkan, S., 2017. Making an impact: Facilitating student success with lessons from instructional communication and educational psychology. Kendall Hunt Publishing Company.
Brookfield, S.D., 2017. Becoming a critically reflective teacher. John Wiley & Sons.
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