Content area
Full Text
Storytelling has received praise from many educators as an effective teaching technique. In most studies assessment has been qualitative, focusing on student reactions; little attention has been given to learning as measured by assessment instruments. In this paper, three cases, six quasi experiments were conducted. Two different storytelling techniques were examined, the well-structured and carefully planned story, and the spontaneous and/or anecdotal story.
Results of the experiments suggest that well planned stories, specifically designed to augment course learning objectives do in fact enhance knowledge and learning. Similar conclusions could not be supported for anecdotal stories.
Keywords: Storytelling, Anecdotal, Learning objectives, Quasi experiments
Disciplines of Interest: Marketing
INTRODUCTION
Storytelling is a powerful method for sharing and transferring information from one person to another. Before there were universities, classrooms, professors and students, there were storytellers who educated, trained, warned, entertained and inspired others. As society advances, the quantity of information increases, the need to acquire and master information increases and the need to transfer information efficiently increases. Is storytelling inefficient as a knowledge transfer methodology? Does its usefulness diminish as new technologies arise and as society becomes more sophisticated with alternative communication sources? Is the necessary volume of information so great that we need to forgo the luxury of creating meaningful context and just get down to the facts?
Education represents an enormous commitment of resources, both human and material, requiring significant amounts of time and money. Given the substantial role in society that education fills, it is imperative that educators continually develop their instructional methods to efficiently and effectively accomplish their learning objectives. Throughout the history of the university, professors have used a lecture-listening-note taking format. Students passively sit in a classroom for hours where they: listen to lectures, take notes, read textbooks, review class lectures and synthesize information, with the objective of developing an understanding of the course content and its application. Although this instructional format has been used across university curricula throughout the world for centuries, it may not necessarily be the most efficacious. Indeed, many professors use some variation of storytelling as part of their classroom instruction through case studies, video clips and the sharing of anecdotal experiences. If nothing else, the ocassional anecdotal story breaks the monotony of a lecture,...