Using storytelling to teach a topic in physics

ABSTRACT

Storytelling has the potential to successfully convey knowledge, understanding and experiences in an unintimidating and exciting way to experts as well as non-experts in almost all fields. Storytelling’s utility as an information transmission medium makes it an attractive choice for use in classrooms where knowledge sharing, and the construction of understandings are required. The aim in this mixed method case study was to reveal the impact of storytelling, when used as an instructional tool, on students’ learning experience when exposed to a unit of work entitled “Light”. Observational checklists and students’ journal entries were used to: (1) assess students’ levels of participation during classroom learning, and (2) solicit students’ views about the effectiveness of storytelling to facilitate science learning. The findings revealed high levels of student participation and an overall expression of enjoyment of learning among students when science was presented to them using this method. Students indicated that storytelling was effective in facilitating their understanding of science content and suggested that it should be used more often in science classrooms.

KEYWORDS:

• Instructional tools
• storytelling
• class participation
• student views

Introduction

Science teachers, in particular physics teachers, are constantly struggling to find student- attractive and meaningful ways to communicate scientific ideas to students (Kokkotas, Rizaki, & Malamitsa, 2010; Mayer, 2002). Science concepts can be used to explain natural observations, events and occurrences, and therefore its relevance is grounded in familiar, everyday applications. Despite this, formal science teaching continues to be characterised by rote methods which often do not make links with common everyday experiences of students. Teacher telling by way of direct instruction is often the dominant science teaching approach in many science classrooms (Campbell & Hlusek, 2015). The danger with rote, teacher-centred approaches, however, is that memorisation leads to isolated understandings which hinders knowledge transfer when students are faced with new situations and scenarios that require application of knowledge (Mayer, 2002). Furthermore, rote methods limit active student participation and present science as a body of facts to be memorised and regurgitated when required. Teacher-centred methods do not facilitate idea sharing and collaboration among students. They present science learning as a passive and uninteresting exercise. Consequently, the current dynamic, tech-savvy and socially aware learners, are rejecting what they describe as the dull dispensation of science (Campbell & Hlusek, 2015). Physics teachers, and by extension all science teachers, are always in search of new strategies and approaches they can adopt in their everyday teaching to excite and meaningfully engage students in science learning, to foster higher levels of classroom interactions and to achieve higher levels of student learning.

Role-play, drama, models, and analogies are all creative and exciting strategies that can be used to create engaging learning environments for students. While there is wide-ranging research on the use of these strategies in the international context, only little exists in the local context (Maharaj-Sharma, 2018, 2008; Maharaj-Sharma & Sharma, 2017). What is common among all these strategies is their potential to grasp and hold students’ attention while easily encouraging them to participate, share and collaborate. Like these strategies, storytelling is also an interesting and exciting approach and its versatility as a powerful teaching and learning tool has been described in several international works (Csikar & Stefaniak, 2018; Haigh & Hardy, 2011; Rose, 2017). There is, however, no local literature on the use of storytelling as an instructional strategy in the Trinidad and Tobago context. The reason for this is uncertain, but may be linked to the fact that educators in Trinidad & Tobago (and perhaps in other jurisdictions as well) perceive storytelling to be a strategy associated with the teaching of literature and not with science teaching (Campbell & Hlusek, 2015; Rose, 2017). The reality is that there is a dearth of literature on contemporary approaches in science teaching in Trinidad & Tobago which is perhaps linked to the fact that teacher led direct instruction is the dominant approach adopted by science teachers in Trinidad & Tobago. There is also little evidence to suggest that research on the use of contemporary approaches is deliberately pursued in Trinidad & Tobago. It is the intent of this work therefore, to add to the current scarcity of literature on contemporary approaches in teaching and learning in the research context. The specific focus in this work is on the use of storytelling to teach science. This work, therefore, attempts to bridge, albeit in a small way, the current literature gap on the use of non-traditional approaches in science teaching by exploring the use of storytelling to teach physics to a group of form four science students in Trinidad and Tobago. Specifically, the aim in this work is to explore the effect of storytelling on students’ levels of classroom participation and to elicit their views about the effectiveness of storytelling as a teaching/learning strategy in the science classroom.

Even with internationally published research on the instructional utility of storytelling, when compared to the utilisation of other teaching and learning strategies such as cooperative learning, interactive worksheets and ICT interventions, storytelling is underutilised and understudied in education, particularly in science education (Engel, Lucido, & Cook, 2018; Rose, 2017). While the reason for underutilisation is not definitively known, there is speculation that because storytelling has its genesis in fiction and is usually perceived to be “made-up”, it is not embraced as a pedagogically rigorous teaching and learning methodology (Denning, 2005). In fact Walan (2019) reported that in the science disciplines where exactness, experimentation and data are revered, instructional approaches that are perceived to be subjective will only be adopted with cautious reservation. Olson (2015) too, advised that teaching and learning approaches, which may be viewed as intuitive, are not easily embraced in science classrooms. Despite Maharaj-Sharma (2008); Maharaj-Sharma & Sharma (2017) reported that less traditional approaches such as drama and role-play have been effectively used by teachers in the research context to teach science lessons. Findings of these works reveal high levels of acceptance of the approaches by students and improved teacher satisfaction when using these approaches to teach science. There is, therefore, precedence for the use of non-traditional methods in science classrooms in Trinidad and Tobago and it is the intent that this work will add to the existing body of work on the use of novel approaches in science teaching in the research context.

Storytelling

Perhaps one of the most written about benefits of storytelling is its feature to allow auditory as well as visual participants to effortlessly become absorbed in situations and contexts, even new ones, in a very concrete way. This characteristic of storytelling makes it very easy for the storyteller to integrate new ideas, new relations and even new concepts into the existing schema of the listener or the observer (Dahlstrom, 2014; Morais, 2015). Storytelling has its roots in historical accounts which generations of the past embraced as a full-proof medium to transfer traditional knowledge, beliefs, values and practices as well as historical occurrences and important changes which occurred over time (Abrahamson, 1998; Farrell & Nessel, 1982; McDonald, 2009). It was viewed as a way to preserve what is known and to alert those who would come after about the possibilities that awaited. In that context therefore, storytelling has at its core, the philosophical underpinnings of sound education pedagogy (McDonald, 2009). Formal schooling in its early methods included aspects of storytelling that were used to hone students’ interest and to encourage students to actively participate in learning (Green, Strange, & Brock, 2002). It seems, however, that as educational systems evolved, and pedagogies became more contemporary, traditional storytelling became overshadowed by other approaches. In fact, over the last two decades in particular, the thrust has been for teachers to adopt every variety of ICT in their teaching which has led to the gradual replacement of many non-technological approaches. There is no doubt that technology is with us and that it is here to stay, but there is no convincing literature to suggest that technology and ICT approaches are superior to certain traditional approaches. Role-play, dramatisation, and storytelling will continue to hold promise for the creation of exciting, engaging, meaningful and rewarding classroom experiences even in a technologically froth environment. Even more exciting at this time is the opportunity to merge approaches to the extent that digital dramatisation and digital storytelling can easily complement the traditional version of these approaches (Skouge & Rao, 2009). Whether adapted or traditional, storytelling will remain a versatile option available to teachers.

Literature framework

Storytelling as a way to increase student engagement has its tenants in contextual comprehension. It offers a “time tested” and effective means for sharing knowledge, experience, and wisdom, whilst at the same time it can evoke fun for both the storyteller and the listeners. A story is a real or imagined account of events that describes an experience or an array of experiences (Connelly & Clandinin, 1990). The terms “story” and “narrative” are often used interchangeably and while Haigh and Hardy (2011) have outlined the subtle differences between them; for the purposes of this work the terms will be used interchangeably.

A story, whether factual or fictional, serves to initially capture the listener’s attention and to quickly transition the listener into a mental space that is preoccupied with awe, anticipation and often excitement (Dunne, 2006). Without significant effort, the storyteller is able to locate the listener in a familiar context through the story. In a familiar context, the listener finds it easy to negotiate ideas presented through words, phrases, and even detailed accounts, to easily assign meanings and understandings by comparing and contrasting new ideas with existing ones. The feeling that they are being directly spoken to, whether it is through narratives or via digital media, takes the listener into the realm of the story with all its emotions and expectations (Dahlstrom, 2014). This aspect of storytelling pedagogy is particularly important in the current work which seeks to ascertain the utility of storytelling to be able to promote active participation, excitement and interest in science learning.

Coherence is the hallmark of a good story or narrative (Aronson, 1995). In the classroom for example, remembering a list of isolated concepts and definitions can prove to be difficult for many students, but recalling the sequence of events in a story can make it easier for them to remember. Stories help create vivid mental images which can serve as powerful pedagogical cues for recall. Stories can provide natural connections between events and concepts, and so, the mention or recollection of one part of a story may help evoke ideas and relations contained in other parts of the story (Walan & Enochsson, 2019). Equally fundamental in storytelling is knowing the audience so that the storyteller can select or create the story to reflect the backgrounds, beliefs, and experiences of the target audience (Csikar & Stefaniak, 2018). In this way therefore, storytelling in the classroom can be very effective because teachers possess valuable tacit knowledge of their students. The exploration being sought in this work relies on this fundamental principle of storytelling.

Storytelling in the science classroom is not very common because of its perceived subjectivity which teachers assume can contradict the scientific process (Olson, 2015). Scientific inquiry, experimentation, discovery learning and direct teacher instruction are preferred methods science teachers adopt in their classrooms. The view is that such methods facilitate the scientific process by providing a systematic way to recall facts, understand concepts and apply knowledge. Indeed, much has been published about the success of these methods, but they are not free from critique. One common criticism is that even under the guise of scientific inquiry and discovery learning much science teaching continues to be dominated by direct teacher instruction which, as reported by Delores (1998), is not appealing to the dynamic science learners populating today’s classrooms. In view of this realisation many jurisdictions are mandating teachers to infuse more contemporary approaches into their science teaching. Storytelling, traditional or digital, is one such approach that is likely to be welcomed by today’s learners (Walan, 2019).

There are two ways in which storytelling, traditional storytelling or digital storytelling, can be used in any classroom including the science classroom. Storytelling can be used to assess student’s knowledge, or it can be used to deliver content (Banister & Ryan, 2001). Most published works on the use of storytelling, particularly in science classrooms, discuss its use to assess science learning. Storytelling in science assessment is very useful as it presents opportunity for students to demonstrate transfer of knowledge in familiar contexts and by way of their unique levels of academic understanding (Morais, 2015; Hopfer, 2012; Mazor et al., 2007). Fewer studies, which include that done by Krupa (2014), have reported on the use of storytelling to deliver content in the science classroom. When used in this way the responsibility lies with the teacher to ensure articulation among the story itself, the content to be learned and the context in which the story is presented. In this work, traditional storytelling will be used to deliver science content in a secondary school classroom setting to explore its utility as an instructional tool.

Storytelling in formal science teaching

There is sound evidence as reported by Johnstone & Bean (1997) that giving students lists of scientific facts and ideas, no matter how fascinating or compelling, is not the best way to teach science but if the same scientific facts and ideas are conveyed to students as a narrative story, students derive a sense of belonging in the learning and the content is more easily remembered.

The utility of traditional storytelling, and in more recent times, digital storytelling, in teaching and learning is not a new concept though its prominence in science pedagogy is not as far reaching as other contemporary approaches (Hu, Gordon, Yang, & Ren, 2020). Almost two decades ago, Rowcliffe (2004) reported that, “storytelling may help children to link cause and effect; hence illustrating scientific concepts in the form of a story improves pupils’ science learning”. Furthermore, Arya and Maul (2012) used the examples of Marie Curie’s discovery of radium and Galileo’s discovery of the moons of Jupiter to present science content to middle school students in two northern California school districts and found that contrasting narratives not only allowed students to better understand the key science concepts of radioactivity and forces of attraction, but also promoted high levels of student participation during the learning. A few years later, Browning and Hohenstein (2015) conducted a comparative study in which two groups of British science students were taught the ideas behind biological evolution, and found that the group that was exposed to story-based narratives was observed to be more enthusiastic about the topic and was found to have a greater understanding of the process than the group that was taught using expository explanations of the process. They suggested that imagination was critical to helping children understand and pointed out that unlike rote learning, narrative storytelling, with its link to reality and its emphasis on characters, encourages students to actively contribute as learning occurs and thus makes it easier for children to “absorb and retain”.

More recently, Walan and Enochsson (2019) used storytelling in a Swedish classroom to teach students how the immune system responds when someone has a cold and it was revealed that students exited the learning experience having learned the names of immune system cells and how they work, as well as with a sound understanding of the physiology of how viruses cause colds. Students were also in high praise of the opportunity for imagination that the story presented them with and the high levels of peer interaction the approach facilitated. The researchers concluded that the storytelling provoked an understanding of immunity concepts and that the structure and flow of the story itself, stimulated students’ imagination, which served to facilitate the learning process. In even more recent works, Matamit, Roslan, Shahrill, and Said (2020) showed that by introducing storytelling in the science classroom students were able to expand their imagination and enrich their learning experience of sense organs as the narrative approach encouraged students to construct understandings of science concepts presented through fun explanations conveyed by stories.

The use of storytelling in the form of a mystery or detective story such as that described by Knox and Croft (1997), with its focus on solving the mystery of the Cretaceous extinction, and more recently, that discussed by Hu et al. (2020) which explored the death of a star, are even rarer in the literature. In these examples, the mystery type story was found to be a rich stimulus in which scientific exploration, the scientific process and the nature of scientific research were illuminated. In addition, mystery type stories were noted to have promoted elevated levels of classroom interaction and it has been speculated that the observed high levels of interactivity may be linked to the intrigue and excitement generated as students discussed information and ideas emanating from the stories to arrive at solutions to the mystery (Hu et al., 2020). Mystery type stories therefore has tremendous potential to evoke interest and promote interactivity while facilitating learning. It is this mystery type story that is used in this work.

Significance of this work

In this work, the use of traditional storytelling to teach a unit of physics to a group of form four secondary school science students was explored. It is a first attempt at formally documenting the use of storytelling to teach science in the research context and therefore this work is seminal. It will provide science teachers in Trinidad and Tobago with a working example of how storytelling can be incorporated into their practice and will hopefully inspire other teachers to adopt storytelling in their lessons. The discussions emerging from this work will bring awareness to the challenges, benefits, and possibilities of using storytelling as a pedagogical tool and will sensitise those desirous of using the approach to the issues that must be borne in mind when planning, executing and assessing for learning through storytelling. In a broader context, this work will also highlight elements of best practice that may be derived from the use of this approach. Acknowledging the significance of this work therefore and against the background outlined, the following research questions guided this study:

1. What is the effect of storytelling on students’ levels of participation in the science classroom?

2. What are students’ views about the effectiveness of storytelling in facilitating science learning?

Methodology

The research context

Many secondary school teachers in Trinidad & Tobago, inclusive of science teachers, constantly struggle to find ways to make their classrooms more interactive and to encourage students to participate fully in the teaching and learning exercise. Traditional methods of teaching, as described by Tarver (1998), such as direct instruction, teacher telling and lecturing, are the dominant approaches in many classrooms in Trinidad & Tobago. This is primarily because teachers are hard pressed to complete extensive syllabi of work to prepare students for terminal external examinations. For the most part, students’ performance on these external examinations is used as an indicator of teachers’ effectiveness and performance, both at the level of the school and at the level of the Ministry. Science teachers lament that it is difficult to complete the syllabi requirements even when teaching in the traditional paradigm and that if mandated to adopt more contemporary approaches in their science teaching, the transition will be a difficult one for them. Even so, science teachers acknowledge the pitfalls of traditional approaches and have noted students’ disapproval with the use of these approaches. They have reported low levels of classroom interaction among students, students’ unwillingness to volunteer responses and share ideas as well as concerning levels of disinterest displayed by students when asked to participate in classroom activities. In short, science teachers in Trinidad and Tobago have observed that students are learning science more by compel, rather than by interest, excitement, motivation or enthusiasm. The challenge therefore continues to be for science teachers to begin to adopt innovative and creative ways to engage the dynamic classroom clientele and to transform science learning into a motivating experience for students. It is this desire for transformation which motivated the current work.

Research design

In this work, a mixed methods approach within the parameters of a case study design was employed. The case in this work comprised a group of Form 4 students from a school in a semi-urban setting in Trinidad and Tobago. This is the first attempt to use storytelling as an instructional strategy to teach science in the research context and in that regard the case study design was deem suitable (Merriam, 1998). The intent was to ascertain students’ views about the utility of storytelling as an instructional tool as well as to explore their observed levels of classroom participation when storytelling was used in science teaching. To achieve these intended outcomes, students written narratives as well as their observed classroom behaviours were interrogated. Creswell (2014) suggested that the qualitative approach as described and used by Bashan and Holsblat (2017), is most suitable for the exploration of written narratives. Such an exploration seeks to describe and to extract meaning from personalised expressed views. In addition, to assess students’ observed classroom behaviours in response to the storytelling intervention, observational checklists scores were quantitatively analysed. Mertens, Pugliese, and Recker (2017), have advised that quantitative analysis of checklist data can yield useful conclusions especially when the intent is to comparatively assess the extent or frequency of a range of observations or behaviours.

Participants

A total of thirty eight (38) secondary school students (aged 15–16) from a Form 4 class in a public school located in a semi-urban community in Trinidad participated in this work. Teachers at that school had participated in a series of Visual and Performing Arts (VAPA) workshops over a two (2) year period which ended in June 2019. The VAPA workshops were designed to expose teachers of all disciplines to the ways in which classroom instruction can be delivered using the Creative Arts. Areas of the Creative Arts covered in the workshops included dance, song, poetry, storytelling, and sketching. Since completing the workshop series, several teachers at the school have made attempts to use the VAPA approaches in their classrooms and some of them have indicated that they are desirous of formally documenting students’ response to the use of the VAPA strategies. The science teacher who participated in this work, made a formal request to the researcher to engage in a collaborative project with the intention of documenting the use of the storytelling intervention in her science class.

The thirty eight (38) students who participated in this work belonged to a single Form four class (4 L). The group consisted of eighteen (18) males and twenty (20) females. The class was taught science by the teacher who expressed interest in exploring the utility of storytelling as an instructional tool in her science teaching. As a result, the class was purposively selected for this work. The socioeconomic status of the students in the class was similar, with the majority of students coming from middle-class families. The data for this work were collected over a four (4) week period in the first term of the 2019–2020 academic year (September 2019 – December 2019). Each teaching session was forty (40) minutes. All students were informed of the nature of the research and were assured that their anonymity would be guaranteed. They were all invited to sign a consent form to confirm their willingness to participate in this work.

Procedure – Pre-implementation

The participating teacher sought official consent from the school’s principal to engage the students in 4 L in the research project. Once the principal’s approval was granted, the nature of the research was thoroughly explained to the students, and they were given consent forms to be signed by their parents. They were told that their final grades will not be affected and that no identifying information will be used in reporting the findings of the study. In addition, they were guaranteed that the data collected will be used only for this research project and that all data collected will be treated with confidence. They were also advised that they had the option to voluntarily withdraw from the study if they wanted.

The unit of work entitled “Light” was prepared 3 weeks prior to the start of the study. It consisted of seven lessons. The entire unit inclusive of classroom activities, content and formative assessment exercises were reviewed by the science unit’s head of department to verify that the unit aligned with the scheme of work planned for the class and that the classroom activities targeted the expected learning outcomes for the lessons in the unit. The lesson topics which constitute the unit are presented in Appendix I.

The science content to be covered in the unit of work was integrated into a problem-based mystery story which the class teacher prepared one month before the anticipated start date for teaching. The story centred on the mysterious appearance and disappearance of shadows that a fourteen (14) year old boy observes in his backyard as the day progresses. Unexplained changes in the features of the shadow including length and opacity were also infused in the story. The teacher was careful to infuse cognitive dissonance linked to the five key content areas covered in the unit into the story. [The five areas were: light as a wave, transmission of light through different types of objects, straight line travel of light, mirrors and image formation, reflection & refraction of light].

Procedure – Implementation & instrumentation

The treatment period for this study was, seven teaching sessions (each forty (40) minutes long) taught over a four (4) week period. The manipulative intervention was storytelling instruction, and the responding variables were students’ levels of participation and their views on the utility of the storytelling intervention.

The story was used as the main instructional tool throughout the unit of seven lessons. The story was conceptualised as an overarching mystery in which each character in the story possessed a unique skill or talent that will be required at various points in the unit of unit of work to eventually solve the overarching mystery. The activities in each lesson were designed to allow students to uncover clues they must use to solve a part of the overarching mystery. Each lesson was tailored around a “mini-mystery” which must be solved in order to solve the overarching mystery. The lesson’s content was integrated into the activities so that as the clues were revealed relevant science learning took place. Working through the activities required students to choose the necessary skill or talent of the story’s characters and to explain why the chosen skill/talent was suitable or helpful in arriving at a solution. Skill/talents of the story’s characters included features like invisibility (useful when exploring translucent versus opaque objects) and appearing/disappearing (helpful when exploring the formation of real and virtual mirror images).

Students were assigned to specific groups of 4–5 students, for the duration of this unit. Throughout the unit, students engaged in small group activities which consisted of interaction with stimulus materials as well as hands-on activities which targeted the set of mysteries in the story. The materials and activities were selected to allow for students to work collaboratively to arrive at a final product or explanation. Sub-tasks in most of the activities provided opportunity for group members to assist their peers with conceptual development. At various points in the lessons, the teacher intervened with whole class discussions to consolidate ideas, refocus efforts and to allow individual students as well as groups to share their ideas, suggestions, and new learnings. The story in its entirety was presented in lesson 1 – the introductory lesson – in which the students and the teacher engaged in a whole class discussion about the various “mini- mysteries” in the story.

As the unit progressed, students were guided to focus on the relevant part of the story that related to the science learning occurring in each of the lessons to arrive at solutions for the mystery in that part of the story. The entire story was written on a large poster sheet and posted on the wall of the classroom so students could easily refer to it as they worked through the science activities in the various lessons. The class teacher introduced each lesson at the start of the session and made relevant links to what was discovered/learned in the previous lesson. She then directed students’ attention to the area of focus in the day’s lesson by referring to the story posted on the wall.

In this work, students’ levels of participation in the science classroom were gauged using a detailed teacher checklist. The observational checklist was adopted and suitably adapted, from work done by Wiggins (1993), in which students’ levels of participation, as described by Bean and Peterson (1998), were explored. The cooperating teacher observed the lessons and completed the checklist while the class teacher taught. The checklist consisted of fifteen (15) descriptive items, which each sought to encapsulate the behaviours of students as they engaged in the science lessons. Each item rated a particular behaviour as high, moderate, or low depending on the extent and the frequency (as described by Bean & Peterson, 1998) with which the particular behaviour was observed among the students. The checklist focused on behaviours in the following areas:

• Students’ willingness to freely volunteer answers to questions posed to them in whole class discussions.

• Students’ participation (oral and written) in group work/activities.

• Students’ engagement in peer assistance when working through group activities.

At the end of each lesson, students’ perceptions about the effectiveness of storytelling were captured by way of a short journal entry. They were asked to indicate in what ways they felt the storytelling strategy was helpful in facilitating their science learning. They were also asked to write a sentence or two about their feelings after having been engaged in the lesson of day.

Data and data analysis

Observational checklists

In this work the observational checklist was used in a manner very similar to that described by Maharaj-Sharma (2014) and similarly sought to capture students’ level of participation during each lesson. The checklist allowed the cooperating teacher to record, from among the list of demonstrative behaviours, which behaviours each student displayed during each lesson, and to classify the observed behaviour as strong, moderate, or weak. The cooperating teacher also observed the students as they interacted with stimulus materials and with their peers while working through activities in their groups, and she completed the observational checklist to reflect the extent to which students were demonstrating each behaviour. The rationale for, and the validation of the checklist, are presented in appendix II. Upon completion of the unit of work, the lists were collated, reviewed, and analysed quantitatively, as described by Maharaj-Sharma (2014), to determine the extent to which each of the behaviours observed was displayed by the students. The observed behaviours were further analysed to reveal the extent and nature of students’ participation in terms of their willingness to provide and/or volunteer responses, their participation in group tasks through information sharing, and their willingness to provide peer assistance to others in their group and to the class in general.

Journals

Students were asked to make a short journal entry at the end of each lesson, in which they were encouraged to reflect on what they did during the lesson and to write a few sentences about their perceptions of the storytelling strategy in facilitating their learning for that lesson. They were also asked to write a statement about their feelings about the learning experience they had in the lesson of the day. The entries were made under the cover of anonymity so that students could honestly and freely express their views in a non-intimidating setting. The journal entries were collected and carefully reviewed by reading through all entries several times. The inductive coding approach, as described by Chandra and Shang (2019), was used to assign codes to repeating ideas which emerged from the data. The first level of analysis involved a search for words, expressions and phrases which conveyed similar ideas and then to assign suitable codes to these ideas to create a list of codes. Segments of verbatim were added to the list to validate each code which emerged. In the second level of analysis, the list of codes and corresponding verbatim was reviewed with a view to group similar codes into broader categories which encapsulated links and relationships among the similar codes. For example, codes such as “fun in classes”, “exciting science activities”, “liked/loved learning science”, were grouped together and categorised as “enjoyment of learning”. While several codes emerged in the first level analysis, second level data analysis led to the emergence of two broad categories for the data captured from journal entries: “enjoyment of learning” and “utility of the strategy”.

Results

Observational checklists

Analysis of the data obtained from the observational checklists revealed that, in general, students were very involved during the science lessons. In fact the criterion discussing ideas and solutions to the various mysteries presented in the story scored high, suggesting that students were meaningfully engaged in explaining concepts to their peers and willingly assisting them to work through understanding of the concepts to arrive at solutions and explanations. The data showed that when whole-class questions were posed by the teacher there was an overwhelming willingness by the students to answer, to provide additional explanations and in some cases to offer alternative solutions. The level of interactivity – sharing and collaboration – was very high throughout the unit as students interfaced with stimulus materials and attended to the tasks in their small groups. Students were narrating parts of the story to their peers when explaining what was required in order to reveal the unknown in the story. Quantitative analysis of the observational checklist data revealed the following:

1. Students’ levels of participation, as described by Bean and Peterson (1998), in terms of willingness to volunteer responses to oral questions, willingness to offer explanations, and readiness to make input in discussion, at a high level was noted for more than 76% of the class in each of the lessons in the unit. As the unit progressed, high levels of participation in the class gradually increased from 76% in lesson 2 and plateauing to 80% in lesson 5 onwards. Students’ willingness to offer explanations in the whole class setting increased as the unit progressed so much so that the data showed that by lesson six, almost every student in the class was raising his or her hand to be called upon to share an idea or to explain a concept. Students participating at moderate levels climbed from 12% to 16% while those participating at low levels decreased from 12% to 4% as the unit progressed, indicating that some students who were at low levels of participation at the start of the unit had shifted to moderate or even high levels of participation. The most popular criterion of participation observed in the whole class setting was students’ willingness to volunteer responses to oral questions.

2. In collaborative group work, students were noted to be engaged in very high levels of idea sharing as they collaborated in small groups to solve the mysteries embedded in the story. Even from as early as lesson 1, more than 80% of the students were observed to be engaged in information sharing and discussions at a high level which was maintained for each of the lessons in the unit. While 14% of the students were observed to be collaborating at low levels in lessons 1 and 2, this percent decreased to 8% as the unit progressed to lesson 6, indicating that some students who were not fully involved in the early lessons of the unit began collaborating and sharing as the unit progressed. It may be that they either became more comfortable sharing with peers or that the intrigue of the mysteries in the story drew them into the group discussions. A similar trend was also noted for the criterion on offering assistance to peers. In fact, the data revealed that 3 out of every 4 students were observed to have offered some form of peer assistance to one or more of their colleagues and that 8 out of every 10 students were noted to have benefitted from peer assistance. Some examples of peer assistance included, helping peers calculate suitable scales for ray diagrams, using examples to demonstrate unit conversion and transposition of formulae, and working with colleagues to plot and interpolate graphs. Overall, the indication was that more and more students demonstrated progressively increased levels of collaboration in the group setting as the unit was taught, whether this was as a result of having engaged in idea sharing, peer assistance or both.

Students’ journals

When students’ journals were analysed, it was revealed that their views on the effectiveness of the storytelling approach in facilitating learning were overwhelmingly positive. Most students found the story mysteries to be “helpful” in allowing them to “interact with science concepts” contextualised in the narrative format “through the story”. They admitted that this nature of interaction with science was new to them but that it presented an appealing approach through which they were able to work through problems to arrive at solutions, and in some instances, multiple solution options. Based on the journal entries, there was a strong indication, that the various mystery scenarios described in the story as the story unfolded from the start of the unit to the final lesson in the unit, facilitated “flow” and “building” of ideas as the unit progressed from lesson to lesson. Students also indicated that the small “group interactions were interesting” and that the group activities presented them with opportunities “to learn through collaboration” and “share” information with their peers. Many students said that working with their peers to complete the group tasks and trying to get the outcome of each task to mesh with the story in a logical way was a “rewarding” experience. Many of them said that the story itself introduced an element of “fun” in the science classroom. Students also commented that in making the link between the procedures in the group activities and the mysteries in the story, it was often necessary for them to explain these linkages to their peers and that they “liked explaining what they knew to their friends”. The table below captures actually words and phrases students wrote in their journal entries, to show the sentiments expressed which led to the themes arrived at. It is clear that the sentiments expressed were consistent and seemed to progressively strengthen as the unit unfolded.

Table 1: Emerging themes from journal entries

Table 1. Emerging themes from journal entries.

Lesson	Emerging Themes from journal entries
	Enjoyment of learning	Utility of the Strategy
1	New Nice	Interesting way to learn Different
3	Pleasant experience	Useful way Relevant story
5	Exciting Fun filled	Beneficial to me Great way to learn
7	Love learning Most enjoyable	Best method

It is important to note that while the findings from this work point to high levels of acceptance of the storytelling approach for the majority of students, there were a few students, primarily from among the high performers in the class, who expressed, by way of their journal entries, less positive views about the use of the storytelling approach. They cited the “much slower pace” with which the class progressed as their main area of dissatisfaction. But even having expressed dissatisfaction with the pace of the class, many of them acknowledged in their entries that storytelling can be effective in facilitating science learning. Encouraging though, was the fact that responses of this kind were obtained from only a small minority of the class; less than 5% of the responses.

The following excerpts of journal responses captured in a general sense, students’ views on their levels of enjoyment during learning and their perceptions of the utility of the strategy:

Student 1:

… I did not get it at first … .but when Amy explained how the ray diagram can be used to give height [of the object] … .I was able to solve the story mystery in lesson 3 about why the tree looked so tall …

Student 2:

I went through the optical pin activity with my friend and the mystery about the disappearance and re-appearance of the mirage in the story was revealed in lesson 6 … .

Student 3:

… the mystery in the story was “to see or not to see” … it was an exciting feeling knowing that I helped my group members understand … I explained light behaviour for translucent and opaque items … and we solved the mystery …

Student 4:

The activities and handouts guided us to arrive at solutions … made the problem seem easy … we were all able to get the answer … and explain it too …

Student 5:

… we really shared in our learning … when we did the activities to try to solve the mysteries in the story … in all the lessons …

Student 6:

… solving the mysteries in the story really helped me to understand things about the behaviour of light …

Student 7:

Comparing my answers with my friend … made me realise that the story was a guide to finding answers … and the same mystery can have different explanations … I love this part of the storytelling thing.

Student 8:

… the sharing and discussing was nice … it was different … from the usual … the story got me thinking about many different things …

Student 9:

The story really helped me to want to learn the topic … it made me interested in the work … I like how the story can help me to learn … it was very useful to me.

Student 10: … honestly … I really liked the story … other topics should have a story too …

In summary therefore, analysis of data from both the observational checklists and students’ journals suggests that when storytelling was used in the teaching of a topic in physics, there were high levels of student participation, engagement and collaboration during the learning. Furthermore, students were in high praise of storytelling as an effective approach for facilitating science learning. They also commended the approach as one which enlivened the physics classroom by making science learning an enjoyable experience.

Discussion

The purpose of this work was to explore the effect of traditional storytelling on students’ levels of classroom participation and to elicit their views about the effectiveness of storytelling as a teaching/learning strategy in the science classroom. This work showed that storytelling prompted greater levels of participation among students, especially in the aspects of readiness to answer questions and willingness to volunteer responses. Students also reported high levels of enjoyment when learning science through storytelling and they suggested that the approach was effective in facilitating learning. This work is significant in the Trinidad & Tobago context, as it presents an explicit example which can be used as a guide for other teachers who may wish to use storytelling in their teaching. It also serves as a stepping stone for further work on the use of storytelling to explore aspects such as its impact on academic achievement and attitudes to science. Even beyond the science classroom, this work has implications for the use of non-traditional teaching approaches in the teaching of all disciplines in Trinidad & Tobago. It presents an opportunity for consideration which contrasts the dominant teacher directed approaches that prevail in classrooms in the research context. This example also showed that learning through the story created opportunities which led to high levels of knowledge sharing and interactivity and in that context, this work aligns with the findings of Marsh, Meade, and Roediger (2003) as well as those reported by Matamit et al. (2020). This work therefore, provides an additional option for teachers, especially science teachers, who often admit to having to struggle to get high levels of meaningful participation in their classes. In that regard, this work is significant and instructive.

The storytelling in science intervention itself, is novel in the research context and the revelation that students felt it was effective in facilitating science learning is indicative of their acceptance of the approach. Given that the story was developed with students’ prior knowledge and their everyday experiences in mind, it is likely, as reported by Wilson, Ryan, and Pugh (2010), that learning new concepts became a contextualised exercise unlike the usual abstract learning which characterises teacher directed methods. The element of familiarity, in relation to knowledge and experiences, which the story in this work offered to students, created a comfortable classroom environment which facilitated learning – a claim also suggested from the findings reported by Wilson et al. (2010). Furthermore, the impact of students’ emotional comfort on their views of learning experiences as described by Barrett, Mesquita, Ochsner, and Gross (2007), was evident in this work and in fact the findings of this work align with what was reported therein. In view of all of the above, this first formal attempt at using storytelling to teach science, in the research context, is useful and informative.

Limitations

Storytelling as an instructional tool goes beyond the traditional narrative presentation of a story. With the influx of technology into the education sector, it is possible to teach using digital storytelling tools and other ICT resources such as simulated dramatisation and animated PowerPoint presentations. Such dispensations have the potential to motivate deeper engagement and participation because of their inherent graphic and visual appeal. The classroom in this work did not have internet connectivity and therefore it was not possible to explore the use of digital storytelling in this study. This however is a useful exploration for future work.

As indicated earlier, this is the first documented attempt of using storytelling in the physics classroom in Trinidad & Tobago and so the undertaking was novel for both the researcher and the participants. Like with most novel approaches, eagerness and intrigue can lead to heightened openness and interest and in the case of this work may have prompted initial high levels of participation and positivity towards the approach. Given however that the intervention lasted for four weeks over which levels of participation kept increasing and by which time the novelty effect would have diminished, it is reasonable to assume that the results were associated with the use of the intervention to a far greater extent than with the novelty of the approach.

Concluding remarks & further research

Stories and storytelling are effective at facilitating class participation and at increasing both student-student and student-teacher interactions. The traditional storytelling approach used in this work was found to be effective in promoting interactions and it received high positive ratings from the students. Digital storytelling is an extension of this approach and there is merit in transitioning to digital or at least blending digital with traditional. Digital storytelling will certainly appeal to the current tech-savvy student clientele and quite possibly may yield even more positive results. This premise requires further research.

Engel et al. (2018) indicated, and it was verified by the teacher involved in this work, that conceptualising, creating, tailoring, and writing the story for classroom use was tremendously time-consuming and is a process that requires significant teacher imagination and foresight. It is critical also for the story’s creator to take extreme care to ensure that the subject matter content embedded in the study is sound and accurate. Furthermore, the infusion of content into the narrative must occur in such a way to guarantee that the content to be learned is in no way minimised or misrepresented at the expense of the story (Campbell & Hlusek, 2015). It is therefore a good idea to have the narrative reviewed by content experts and literary experts to ensure content accuracy and plot clarity, as well as to reveal any alternate or dormant interpretation that may have inadvertently escaped the story’s creator in the development of the story (Engel et al., 2018).

This was a small scale study conducted in a science classroom in the Trinidad & Tobago context. While the findings cannot be generalised for all classes or for all disciplines, they are instructive for teachers. This work provides an idea, a starting point, and an option that can be assessed and adapted for use in classroom teaching. The students and the teacher engaged in this work have acknowledged the benefits of storytelling in science teaching in terms of its effectiveness to promote learning and its ability to generate meaningful classroom interactions. It is therefore an approach teachers in the research context, will do well to seriously consider for their classroom teaching.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.

Notes on contributors

Rawatee Maharaj-Sharma

Rawatee Maharaj-Sharma is a Senior Lecturer in Science Education (Physics) at the School of Education, UWI, St. Augustine Trinidad & Tobago. Dr. Sharma is also the current Deputy Dean of Planning & Programming at the Faculty of Humanities and Education. She has been the Coordinator of the Bachelor of Education Programme for the past ten (10) years. Her research interests include novel approaches in science education, science students’ voices and students’ conceptions and misconceptions in science.

Appendix I – Unit of Lessons on Light

The unit of Light consisted of seven (7) lessons taught over a three (3) week period. The general objectives of the unit were:

• To understand the characteristics and the behaviour of light

• To use ray diagrams to show the directional travel of light

• To understand the concepts of reflection and refraction of light

• To perform calculation using basic light formulae

The lessons which constitute the unit are presented in the table below.

Table

Lesson no.	Lesson Topic	Specific Objectives	Cognitive levels
1	The nature of light	Describe the wave nature of light Compare the characteristic of light waves to other waves in the electromagnetic spectrum	Knowledge & comprehension
2	Translucent, transparent and opaque objects	Distinguish among translucent, transparent and opaque objects State the characteristics of images formed by translucent, transparent and opaque objects Identify common situations in which each type of object is preferred	Knowledge, comprehension & application
3	Ray diagrams	Construct ray diagrams to show the light travel in obstructive and non-obstructive paths	Comprehension & application
4	Plane mirror images	Use ray diagrams to show the formation of images on plane mirrors State the properties of images formed by a plane mirror	Knowledge & application
5	Reflection of light	Construct ray diagrams to show the reflection of light at plane boundaries State the laws of reflection Apply the laws of reflection to solve problems	Knowledge & application
6	Refraction of light	Construct ray diagrams to show the refraction of light at the boundary of 2 dissimilar media State the laws of refraction Apply the laws of refraction to locate refracted images	Knowledge & application
7	Overview of the behaviour of light	Review of the Unit	Knowledge, comprehension & application

Appendix II – Student Participation Checklist

Table

Criteria	High level	Moderate level	Low level
Willingness to volunteer responses to oral questions posed by the teacher
Willingness to offer detailed explanations either prompted or unprompted by the teacher or to peers when redirected by the teacher
Readiness to make input in whole class discussion, prompted or unprompted
Sharing ideas and/or information with peers in group work
Offering assistance by way of explanations to peers to aid in understandings of concepts (in group tasks)

Rationale for Instrument design:

The criteria in the instrument were tailored based on descriptors outlined by Bean and Peterson (1998). Items were not directly adopted from Bean and Peterson (1998), but in fact were adapted to suit the nature of the classroom discourse which obtains in science classrooms in Trinidad & Tobago (T&T).

Whole class discussion primarily of the teacher directed type predominates in science classrooms in T&T. Students are sometimes called upon directly by teachers to respond to oral questions, but questions are usually posed to the whole class and students are encouraged to raise their hands to offer a response. Questions are usually of the type which require short responses.

Depending on the topic, and the approach the teacher chooses, the teacher may prompt students to explain a concept or a process in detail, either to solicit individual understanding or to provide the class with an opportunity to benefit from peer learning. Sometimes the teacher will redirect to the class to encourage other students to share their understandings. At times the teacher may pose open-ended questions to the entire class with an open invitation for anyone to offer a response.

Small group work often facilitates student participation in ways different to that in whole class discussion and/or in a teacher directed classroom. Student participation in small group settings can take many forms, the primary among them in the Trinidad & Tobago context is knowledge sharing through peer-peer discussions and peer learning by way of offering explanations or using examples to help peers to understand concepts or to apply knowledge.

Validation process:

Prior to the start of this study, the participation checklist was used in 5 science classrooms with similar demographics as the class in the study. In each class 3 observing teachers were invited to use the checklist to capture students’ level of participation while a science lesson was taught. The students were not aware that were being observed. The checklists obtained from the 3 teachers for each class were compared to determine how teachers scored for each criteria. The result of this validation showed that in all cases, the teachers’ scores for high, moderate and low levels of participation, for each criteria, were identical. This was not surprising as all the teachers had similar teaching experiences in similar school types, with students of similar demographics as those in the current study. Based on this, the instrument was accepted as valid for the purpose of collecting the data being sought in this study.