ABSTRACT
Narratives have a unique ability to grant listeners emotional and cognitive space in a way that encourages them to choose how they will make sense of a story. This effect, called narrative distance, also has the potential to help create transformative learning experiences. This article is a qualitative research study of experts who regularly design for narrative distance. Six experts from a variety of fields were interviewed about the principles and practices of designing for narrative distance with the purpose of discovering ways that instructional designers can better facilitate transformative learning experiences. A variety of principles and practices on how to create narrative distance are categorized under four themes: cognitive space, emotional space, invite change, and meaningful content. General comments are also given on the application of these insights to instructional design along with further suggestions for research.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.