Effects of Digital Storytelling in Mathematics Instruction on Academic Achievement and Examination of Teacher-Student Opinions on the Process

Abstract

Storytelling is a popular instrument used in every domain of natural and social interaction for human communication and commonly used in classrooms to enrich the learning experience. With the use of technological tools in every field of our daily lives, its use in educational environments has become inevitable and in parallel with the development of these tools, digital stories have started to replace traditional storytelling. Digital storytelling offers advantages such as providing diverse applications in the classroom environment, personalizing the learning experience, being interesting, helping difficult subjects explained, addressing real-life-related situations, supporting active learning, allowing for the creation of costless learning environments, and improving motivation and achievement. Materializing a course such as mathematics in which abstract concepts are given, helping students use the learned information with stories and associate it with daily life, developing activities to make learning environments enjoyable when learning and applying by taking students away from the traditional understanding of instruction are considered some of the most important duties of teachers in this process. In accordance with the related considerations, this study aims to investigate the effects of mathematics courses instructed by association with digital storytelling on 8th-grade students’ academic achievements and the teacher and student opinions on the application process. The study using the quasi-experimental method was conducted with 58 students. The Achievement Test, written opinion forms to receive student opinions and interview form for teacher were prepared by the researchers to this end. At the end of the study, although no statistically significant differences were found between the groups in the posttest and the delayed-posttest in terms of academic achievement score averages of the students in the experimental group were found to be higher than the score averages of the students in the control group. The results achieved in this study show that digital storytelling is a powerful instrument to create more interesting and enjoyable learning environments which facilitate association with daily life, allow for effective learning and participation. It was also stated that the students and the mathematics teacher had positive opinions on use of digital stories in the courses and its contribution to the courses.