Phenomena of psychology do not occur in a vacuum nor should the instruction of psychology. Previous research indicated a movement towards active learning, which affords instructors and students of psychology the opportunity to break down classroom barriers to bridge academia and real life. Although a substantial amount of research has supported the use of active learning, a gap exists in identifying both the effectiveness of specific techniques and the use of storytelling across disciplines. Specifically, little research has focused on the effectiveness of storytelling as an active learning strategy in introductory college courses, especially in comparison to traditional methods. Therefore, the purpose of the present study was to examine the effective use of active learning through storytelling as a means to foster connections between conceptual material and real world application. Participants in this repeated measures, quantitative study included 109 college students who were randomly assigned to one of three experimental learning conditions: No Storytelling, Instructor Story Only, and Instructor Story Plus Student Response. Analyses of variance indicated no significant difference on test scores at Pretest and Posttest 2; however, significant differences were found at Posttest 1. Social change implications for this study may include promoting active learning through storytelling that has the potential to transform learners, instructors, campus environments, online learning communities, and curriculum development practices across higher education.
Constructivism Constructivism is an instructional approach built on the
assumption that students construct their own knowledge within the learning
environment through active participation based on previous experience (
Bellefeuille, 2006; ...
