Individual case studies using mixed methods constitute the body of this research. Data for this study was collected through observations, the evaluation rubric, and teacher interviews. Five separate case reports were prepared. The case reports aim to answer the research questions; and a cross-case matrix was developed for each research question. The intent of the study was not comparative, due to the fact that it was conducted in a single school and all five practice case studies were conducted at different educational levels such as Years 3–4 in primary school, and Year 11 in secondary school. In addition, the approach assumed in the implementation of this research was dependent on teachers. Therefore, in one-class students worked autonomously, while in others they worked in groups.
Considering all the above parameters, the main focus of the research was not to perform a comparative analysis, but rather to evaluate the effects of digital storytelling on education. The intent was to capture the benefits of using digital storytelling to explore student engagement and outcomes, as well as teacher experience with digital storytelling.
Therefore, in this section will focus on the main conclusion derived from the discussion of main findings related to student’s engagements and learning outcomes, as well as the teacher perceptions about digital storytelling as a pedagogical tool.
Enhancing engagement
The findings of this research indicate that levels of student engagement fluctuate between moderate and high. In other words, students were always engaged in the classroom. The use of software and conducting searches for digital media took these levels to very high, and were the highest for student presentations. In all cases students liked using technology, searching the internet, and watching other digital stories. There were some differences in implementation. For instance, Year 7 students had very low engagement levels when they had to complete their storyboards. Year 9 students had a constant, high level of engagement as they occasionally presented their completed works. Some Year 11 students’ lack of interest in school curriculum presented as an engagement problem. However, the use of digital media managed to increase their engagement level. This finding is supported by Dupain and Maguire who argued that educators continuously need methods to engage students’ interest with teaching material. With the aid of the latest developments in technology, classrooms welcome digital storytelling as a means of teaching, and students are motivated to conceive an academic concept and transmit their own (Dupain & Maguire [2005]).
The above findings are also in agreement with the current literature which encourages this new teaching approach, that is, digital storytelling permits students to utilise technology in an effective manner. Provision of appropriate resources and editing tools paves the way for student motivation and maximises its positive effect (Sadik [2008]; Morris [2011]). This encourages students to put more effort into their stories and to create quality products.
Yet another result confirming the above findings is reported by Gils, this research showed that pupils are more engaged with the practical environment. Digital storytelling makes practice and training more engaging, diverse, and customised to their needs and challenges, which makes it more realistic. In this sense, it encourages students to focus on using English to communicate with classmates. Digital storytelling has the advantage of engaging three different senses: hands, eyes and ears. It also increases students’ technical literacy (Van Gils [2005]).
On the other hand, the findings of this research indicate students had a hard time getting engaged in the class when they had to finish their storyboard; some students were not interested in any school activity including digital storytelling. Therefore, they had a low engagement level. However, when these students started recording their own videos, engagement levels increased significantly.
Consequently, it is possible to use digital storytelling to integrate instructional messages with learning activities to create more engaging and exciting learning environments. This teaching approach enhances emotional interest and cognitive attention, and reflects consistent and reliable transfer of knowledge in line with modern learning theories. Considering Barrett’s findings, it can be concluded that digital storytelling combines student engagement and effective integration of technology into instruction, which are student-centred learning strategies (Barrett [2006]).
Fostering collaboration
The findings of this research indicated that students work collaboratively and engage with digital content. They did more work while directly using applications and digital resources, such as the internet and/or libraries, instead of conventional printed media, such as books. This research also observed collaboration between groups where different groups helped each other with technical or grammar issues. This increased their levels of communication.
The above findings are in agreement with Standley who found that the creation of digital stories encourages collaboration between students, which in turn leads to the utilisation of various cognitive capabilities. Moreover, when working in a group, individuals pay more attention to content (Standley [2003]).
In addition, other researchers have found similar findings to those in this research. According to them, the digital learning experience can promote collaborative studying and encourages students to share resources online. Students’ skills are also enhanced by using databases and internet sources. Furthermore, digital content ensures that different groups are helping each other, as networked digital content connects the whole class; students who participate in digital storytelling projects have better communication, organisational skills, and more confidence in terms of asking questions and expressing opinions (Robin [2006]; VanderArk and Schneider. [2012]; Hung et al. [2012]).
The fact that students helped one another in problem solution and concept development reinforces the idea that cooperation and collaboration levels are increased with digital storytelling, in other words students have a higher engagement level when they are working in groups to create a story.
In conclusion, this research demonstrates that digital storytelling can increase students’ collaboration and communication skills.
Transforming learning
This research affirms that digital storytelling is suitable for a constructive approach to learning; because students work on their own story after receiving basic instructions from the teacher. Students have their own individual approach based on their interactions and experiences and generate novel outputs by using different sources in their creation of the digital story. These findings are in line with those reported by other researchers, such as Garrard who observed that digital storytelling supports constructivist learning and concluded that digital storytelling is a good method of teaching with positive impacts (Garrard [2011]).
In addition, the findings of research conducted by Normann concur with this research. He concluded that digital storytelling is a perfect way of learning new things and to implement constructive approaches to education, he reported that the method of conducting lessons impacted the students’ approach to learning activities (Normann [2011]).
The constructivist approach has several perspectives on learning since it recognises that human beings use their own personal vision in explaining the acquired information (Duffy et al. [2012]). This was supported by teachers in our study who concluded that digital storytelling permits students to learn by doing, and providing a flexible learning environment enables students to use their own ideas.
In addition, the findings of this research confirm that facilitating or scaffolding the learning process is the teacher’s main role. At the beginning, tasks, software and digital storytelling are explained by the teacher, which requires a teacher-led mode. Following this step, students have the necessary knowledge from which to start working autonomously, with some teacher supported learning.
Robin, who has a similar outlook on digital storytelling, found that a story created by the teacher will help students to enhance their abilities. The teacher thus builds the framework for discussing storytelling topics and makes conceptual and/or abstract subjects more comprehensible. Building on experience and knowledge with teacher support, students create their own story using iMovie and/or Moviemaker. Thus students improve their skill set with teacher support in project development (Robin [2008]).
This has significant congruence with Miller’s findings, i.e. students imitate interactions with their teacher and use these interactions to help others, thus building their interpersonal skills and confidence (Miller [2009]).
Building digital literacy
This research indicates that the utilisation of digital storytelling in education increases skills. Teachers witnessed that digital storytelling via technology integration assisted students, and helped them overcome their problems. As supported by Ohler, who viewed digital storytelling as a concept supporting creativity, students could solve crucial problems in unprecedented ways. Furthermore, teachers viewed digital storytelling as a valuable tool to increase research skills. A myriad of skills, such as spelling, writing, teamwork or collaborating with students and teachers, can be improved. Needless to say, the uptake of technology improves technical skills (Ohler [2008]). Sadik arrived at a different conclusion in his research, where classroom observations and interviews showed that the use of technology is only effective if teachers have the expertise to customise content for story creation (Sadik [2008]).
In addition, the findings of teacher interviews indicate that digital storytelling is an effective tool to help students improve their technical skills and information literacy. Students have the opportunity to choose the skill they want to work on and improve. This may include individual skills, such as spelling and writing, as well as interpersonal skills such as working in a team, or collaborating with students and teachers. Miller also found that in every class engaged in digital storytelling, one student acted like a tutor. This student not only worked on the project, but also provided technical support to peers in terms of developing their stories. In this sense, students are empowered to use their strongest skills, and improve them. Their research skills are also honed during video searches, scanning images and selecting audio content for the story (Miller [2009]).
Also, the findings indicated that teachers believe that the use of stories in education is very beneficial for countries receiving immigrants, such as Australia, because a digital story incorporates multiple aspects of the curriculum, and all teachers should use this medium at some stage. One teacher commented that in their school, where they work with many students from non-English-speaking countries, students welcome the opportunity to express themselves through visual media, rather than more words; it facilitates communication for new students and builds their confidence. Similar finding were reported by Benmayor who stated that digital storytelling can help learners to transfer their knowledge, skills and culture, thereby evolving their thinking process and helping them gain confidence. Accordingly, digital storytelling can be classified as an asset based pedagogy (Benmayor [2008]).
Additionally, the findings of teacher interviews indicated that, with digital storytelling, not only students but the teachers also got the opportunity to improve their technological skills. This included the use of electronic devices such as personal computers, cameras and recorders. Miller reported similar findings. She stated that digital storytelling is the best application for teachers to encourage students to increase their use and knowledge of technology and technical skills. Furthermore, in order to create these stories, not only the students but also the teachers are obliged to increase their technical proficiency in using personal computers, digital cameras, recorders, etc. This helped teachers keep up with the latest technology (Miller [2009]).
Personalising learning experience
The findings of this research show that digital storytelling can cater for greater diversity by personalising student’s experience. It can help them improve their confidence, and contribute to enhanced social and psychological skills. It can also be used to support students with special needs such as ESLa and VCALb students.
These findings are in line with other research outcomes reported in literature. Van Gils found that personalised education is one of the main advantages of digital storytelling. He argued that learners can present their experiences, reflections and evaluate their achievements while creating digital stories (Van Gils [2005]). According to Ohler, digital storytelling helped students to become active participants rather than passive consumers of information (Ohler [2008]).
Academic efforts that focus on the benefits of digital storytelling are supported by government agencies. Several governing and regulatory authorities have been working on improving the education system in terms of motivation, learning outcomes and professional integration. For instance, the Australian Curriculum in Victoria (AusVELS) was specifically designed to ensure that curriculum content and achievement standards established high expectations of all students (AusVELS [2013]). According to AusVELS students are expected to enrich their learning experience, not only in a single aspect of the curriculum, but in all areas. It is known that students in Australian classrooms have varying needs based on individual’s learning histories, abilities, cultural and educational backgrounds. In recognition of this fact, the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) is developing additional curriculum to promote learning outcomes for students with disabilities, and/or to assist students from different linguistic and learning backgrounds (ACARA [2013]).
This fact is also recognised by the UNESCO program for the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development. It considers storytelling to be one of the modules which can be used to equip students with professional learning and teaching skills. This helps students achieve a wide range of knowledge, skills and values, which is the objective of Education for Sustainable Development (UNESCO [2010]). The use of storytelling in Australian schools is bound to have a lasting impact, since it is defined by UNESCO as “a key teaching strategy for achieving the objectives of education for sustainable futures” (p.1).
Consequently, suffice to say that digital storytelling has, inter alia, the benefit of increasing student motivation, especially for those students who have difficulties with reading and writing, allowing personalisation of the learning experience, acquiring experience with in-depth and comprehensible reading and becoming more proficient at technical aspects of language. Digital storytelling can be used to develop personalised learning experiences for students, thereby responding to diverse individual needs.
Impact of digital storytelling on student outcomes
As the latest report for the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) indicated that the use of technology in education can increase various skills of learners, the findings of this research also suggested that digital storytelling can enhance several learning skills including writing, designs, library and research, technology and communication.
In addition, digital storytelling can help students with tasks they previously found very difficult including spelling, sentence formation and building, and forming the whole body of a text; this integration of technology assisted students to overcome their writing problems.
However, age and ability to learn technological subjects have some impact on the outcomes. When compared with primary school students, secondary school students have the ability to learn more and faster. They use the internet and computers more than primary school students. This was apparent during the study, especially where primary school students worked exclusively on their stories in the class, secondary school students worked on their stories, both inside and outside the class.
Furthermore, teachers observed that students were learning without realising. Provided that students are clearly informed about the task that is required of them, digital storytelling is useful as an all-round skill development tool; the use of digital storytelling can therefore reinforce various complementary skills.
The findings of the cross-case analysis based on the rubric data are presented in the following sections.
Overall mean level of student scores
Figure 1 shows the mean of overall scores received by students for digital story quality for all cases. The overall scores were very close, despite the differences in age, subject, knowledge, technology use, etc. Nevertheless, the students in primary school (i.e. ESL and Years 3/4), received the lowest scores while those in secondary school had much better results. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, primary school students did not have prior exposure to Moviemaker software while more secondary school students had used it before.
Furthermore, age and ability to learn technological subjects have sme impact. When compared with primary school students, secondary school students have the ability to learn faster and learn more. They use the internet and computer more regularly than primary school students. This was apparent during the study where the primary school students worked on their stories only in the class. On the other hand, secondary school students worked more regularly on their stories, both inside and outside the class.
It is observed that the subject does not impact student performance. However, the approach taken by the teacher proved to have significant impact. This was observed in two cases. In Years 3–4, the teacher observed that students were struggling with their writing and opted to introduce software so that the students had a clear idea about what was required of them. This additional step increased student performances.
In Year 7, the teacher asked the students to present their work when it was finished. Consequently, almost every fortnight there was a story presentation in class and this contributed to their engagement and better performance. Year 11, Victorian Certificate of Applied Learning (VCAL) students were a special case. There were two groups, one of which was working very well, while the other group was not interested in school work. Although digital storytelling created some interest in the second group, especially during video shoots and presentation, it was not easy to engage them with the overall task. They did not work on the story creation, required constant help from the teacher and received a very low mark.
Overall performance based on evaluation criteria
Figure 2 shows the mean score obtained for the selected criteria for the five case studies. This shows that primary school students performed well in story aspects such as purpose, plot, pacing of narrative, dramatic question, story characters, and emotional content. This is because they planned their storyboard well. The key to their success was that they spent more time in writing and editing their story with some help from the teacher, before actually starting the creation process. However, they did not perform as well in technological components, emotional content and economy of the story. Nor did they perform as well in the “Dramatic Question” and “Grammar and Language Usage” since their knowledge of English was limited.
On the other hand, secondary school students were a complete contrast. They performed not so well in the story aspects since they did not want to spend much time writing and storyboarding. This affected their scores in “Plot” and “Pacing of Narrative”. Their competency in technology helped them receive high marks in technological components such as “Technological Competence”, “Emotional Content” and “Economy of content”. This can be traced back to their age group and knowledge in technology use.
Teacher perceptions about student learning through digital storytelling
Teachers had a positive attitude towards the use of digital storytelling as a teaching tool in their classrooms, as both students and teachers had the opportunity to improve their technological skills, which included the use of various electronic devices, as previously mentioned.
Teachers indicated that digital storytelling increased and enhanced the use of technology in the classroom, which helped students improve their technical skills and information literacy; digital storytelling can also be applied to subjects such as English and History, and in almost all the sciences including mathematics, social studies and humanities.
Furthermore, teachers confirmed that the use of digital stories in education is beneficial for countries receiving immigrants, such as Australia. The ability for expression through visual media, rather than words, facilitates communication for new students and builds their confidence. In addition, teachers fulfilled the role of facilitator, consultant, and could scaffold the learning process more effectively when they used digital storytelling in class.