Digital Storytelling: An Empirical Study of the Impact of ... - LearnTechLib

Jl. of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia (2009) 18(4), 405-428

Digital Storytelling: An Empirical Study of the Impact of Digital Storytelling on Pre-service Teachers’ Self-efficacy and Dispositions towards Educational Technology MISOOK HEO Duquesne University, USA [email protected] This study examined the effects of the digital storytelling experience on pre-service teachers’ self-efficacy towards educational technology. Additionally, this study examined professional dispositions including openness to change towards educational technology, degree of willingness to participate in professional development and technology training, and willingness to work beyond the contractual work hours for technology infusion in classrooms. A total of 98 pre-service teachers participated in the study. After participating in a brief tutorial session, participants spent a week creating their own personal stories using Photo Story software. Results indicated that participants’ technology competency and openness to change towards educational technology improved with the experience of digital storytelling. While teaching pre-service teachers about educational technology and classroom technology integration is important, transferring the technology knowledge and skills that they already possess into the learning environment is also important.

New digital technologies allow more complex, layered representations of teaching and learning materials (Borko, Whitcomb, & Liston, 2009). Not surprisingly, the demand for integrating technology effectively into teaching and teacher education is constantly increasing (Abbitt & Klett, 2007; Borko, Whitcomb, & Liston, 2009). Higher education institutions are responding to

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the demand. Most higher education institutions are currently offering educational technology content to pre-service teachers to increase their capacity to use technology in effective and efficient ways to positively influence student achievement (e.g., 93% of teacher education programs taught educational technology within methods courses in 2006) (U.S. Department of Education, 2007). Integrating technology requires much more than simply putting technology (hardware and/or software) into a classroom (Krueger, 2007). Meaningful technology integration requires curricula that utilize authentic learning activities. Authentic activities allow students to take more ownership over what they learn and to integrate multiple content areas and multiple skills holistically (Maina, 2004). One of the most promising, current approaches that promote authentic learning experiences is Digital Storytelling. Empirical studies support digital storytelling as an authentic learning experience. For example, in an experimental study Sadik (2008) reports that through the digital storytelling experience where students were asked to utilize real world artifacts in a real world context to create their own stories, students were able to think more deeply about the meaning of the story and personalize their experience. Olney, Herrington, and Verenikina (2008) also report that the experiment of digital storytelling with iPods allowed students to experience authentic learning principles and gain a critical understanding of technology used in early childhood education. Throughout history, storytelling has been a fundamental part of human lives. Whether it was in the form of oral, pictorial, written, or film media (McClean, 2007), stories helped in passing knowledge of ancestors to future generations. In modern education systems, storytelling has also been used in many disciplines across grade levels, including higher education. For example in an English as a Foreign Language course, digital stories that were created by third parties were used to help six year olds understand English as a second language. The research results indicated that utilization of digital stories helped the experimental group outperform the control group in the final test administered (Verdugo & Belmonte, 2007). In another study where storytelling was used to teach geometry skills for kindergarteners, storytelling was proven to be an effective medium for improving mathematics skills in children from culturally diverse backgrounds (Casey, Erkut, Ceder, & Young, 2007). In Kearney and Schuck’s study (2004) where K-12 students (elementary and high school students) were asked to produce their own digital videos and evaluate peers’ films, students not only showed a high degree of student autonomy but also exhibited improved motivation and enhanced skills in visual and digital literacy.

Digital Storytelling: An Empirical Study of the Impact of Digital Storytelling

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In higher education, the storytelling technique was utilized with third-year dental school students who took a clinical dental anatomy course (Kieser, Livingstone, & Meldrum, 2008). Students who heard spontaneous stories before being invited to interact and discuss issues with their group supervisor showed consistently higher satisfaction scores. Factor analysis also provided evidence that storytelling nurtured reflective learning while students worked on their clinical anatomy problems. Digital Storytelling is a branch of storytelling that uses digital media to tell a story. Stories are expressed through art, oral history, creative writing, speaking, photographs, music, news clippings, digital video, the Web, graphic design, sound engineering, or animation (Hathorn, 2005). This technique utilizes multimedia technology to foster higher order cognition and help students with various learning styles (McLoughlin, 1997; Sharda, 2007). Used in classrooms, digital storytelling can provide teachers with great opportunities to seamlessly integrate multimedia technology into their classrooms. For example, teachers can utilize their digital stories as an anticipatory set (a short information unit or activity carried out in the beginning of a class) to capture the attention of students and increase their interest in exploring new ideas, to facilitate discussion about the topics presented in a story, or to make abstract or conceptual content more understandable (Robin, 2008). Teachers can also promote 21st century skills and multiple literacy skills, such as the ability to learn core subjects with application of information and communication technology (ICT) by letting students create digital stories of their own, individually or in groups (Robin, 2008). It is often said, explicitly or implicitly, that the pedagogical use of computers or digital devices is different from their personal uses (Franklin, 2007; Olney et al., 2008; Selwyn, 2007). Luckily, digital storytelling allows personal technologies (e.g., photos and videos from digital cameras and music from MP3 devices) to transfer to educational venues in easy, fun, and seamless ways. This characteristic of easy transfer from personal technology to the educational technology of digital storytelling provides an opportunity for pre-service teachers to improve their educational technology efficacy. If a person displays increased technology efficacy, that person also shows a tendency to embrace new technology earlier than the others (Parasuraman & Colby, 2001). Therefore, pre-service teachers with improved educational technology efficacy may have a better chance to become change agents in the field of educational technology and, thus, are more likely to adopt technologies, receive technical training, and will be more likely to be successful in integrating technology into their classrooms (Vannatta & Fordham, 2004).

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Digital storytelling can be learned and created in a relatively short amount of time for a relatively small amount of money (Lasica, 2002; Porter, 2004). This advantage of having a short learning curve and quick production time adds merit to the use of digital storytelling as a gateway to multimedia-based educational technology that enables pre-service teachers to improve their self-efficacy and other personal dispositions towards technology. This study examined the effects of the experience of digital storytelling on pre-service teachers’ self-efficacy in educational technology and other personal dispositions. Closely investigated dispositions include openness to change in educational technology, degree of willingness to participate in professional development and technology training, and willingness to work beyond the contractual work hours for technology infusion in classrooms. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND Personal to Educational Technology Constructivism encompasses a wide range of views, but in general it supports the view that learning is an active process of constructing knowledge and meaning from personal experience (Duffy & Cunningham, 1996; Gold, 2001). As individuals build more experiences, they become able to construct deeper understanding and interpret through a different scheme or structure (Brooks & Brooks, 1993). When the individuals become able to make sense of their learning, knowledge internalization occurs and they will be able to transfer their knowledge to other areas, where relevant (Vosniadou, 1996). Today’s students of higher education are often referred to as the Net generation and are comfortable and confident with using a variety of technologies (Hartman, Moskal, & Dziuban, 2006; Lorenzo, Oblinger, & Dziuban, 2007; Prensky, 2001; Sandars & Morrison, 2007). They do not show hesitation in using digital devices for communication (e.g., cell phone, email, instant messages, and text messages), socializing (e.g., Facebook and MySpace), entertainment (e.g., music downloads and internet computer games) and information sharing via Web 2.0 technologies. While the Net generation exhibits these technology-savvy characteristics in their personal lives and express confidence in personal technology use, they do not always exhibit as high self-efficacy in using technology in a formal, academic environment (Messineo & DeOllos, 2005). For example, Fleming, Motame-


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di, and May’s research (2007) reported slightly less than moderate competence in self-assessment of their computer technology skills in the survey questions that were aligned with the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) standards, even though 96% of them owned their own personal computers and 96% reported they use the computer at least three to five hours each week. Oblinger and Hawkins (2006) have also reported that college students’ competency in using the computer drops dramatically with applications other than using word processors and the Internet for coursework (e.g., presentation development and use of spreadsheets). Other researchers have also reported similar findings (Breivik, 2005; Dziuban, Moskal, & Hartman, 2005; Pence, 2006). While multiple explanations can be made to answer this discrepancy between the students’ willingness to use various technologies in their personal environment and low computer competency in a strictly educational environment, failed knowledge transfer may be one of the explanations that show some promising rationales. That is, although today’s students have knowledge and skill sets for dealing with their personal technology, they might not have succeeded in constructing a deep understanding about them and are not able to transfer their personal technology knowledge (e.g., photos and videos from digital cameras and music from MP3 devices) into an overall knowledge context. Successful Technology Integration in Classroom Successful educational technology integration occurs when technology improves the pedagogy for all students by allowing learning experiences which might not have been possible without the technology, by promoting deep thought processing, by increasing student interaction with the learning subject, by increasing student motivation, and eventually by enhancing student learning (Earle, 2002). While placement of hardware and software in classrooms is a fundamental step, the concern related to hardware and software is only part of the external barrier that teachers need to overcome. To successfully integrate technology in the classroom, teachers must not only surmount the external barriers, but also need to conquer the internal barriers dealing with pedagogy such as attitudes, beliefs, practices, and resistance towards educational technology (Ertmer, 1999).

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Self Efficacy and Personal Dispositions Self-efficacy is a personal belief about his or her performance capabilities in a given domain of activity (Hoy & Spero, 2005; Schunk, 1985). According to Bandura’s self-efficacy theory, “people’s level of motivation, affective states, and actions are based more on what they believe than on what is objectively true” (Bandura, 1997, p. 2). That is, it is possible to better predict people’s behavior by the beliefs that they have about their ability than by their actual capabilities. Thus, it has been often theorized as a determining factor in how well a pre-service teacher is able to effectively use technology to improve teaching and learning (Abbitt & Klett, 2007; Albion, 2001; Kellenberger, 1996; Wang, Ertmer, & Newby, 2004). Self-efficacy towards technology is often believed malleable in a very short duration such as a one semester time period (Abbitt & Klett, 2007; Wang et al., 2004) and may be most malleable early in learning and become more set with experience, if the context and task remain relatively stable (Hoy & Spero, 2005). If pre-service teachers are exposed to educational technology effectively in their learning as early as possible, it can have a critical impact on their long-term development of technology efficacy. In addition to the self-efficacy towards technology, other personal dispositions of teachers, such as openness to change towards educational technology, willingness to participate in technology training, and willingness to work beyond the contractual work hours, can also have an impact on successful technology integration in the classroom. For example, teacher openness to change is proven to be one of the best predictors of technology integration (Baylor & Ritchie, 2002; Marcinkiewicz, 1994; Vannatta & Fordham, 2004). Willingness to participate in technology training and to work beyond the contractual work hours (e.g., self-directed exploration and learning) are also recognized as good predictors of classroom technology use (Robin, 2008; Vannatta & Fordham, 2004). The more teachers are ready to adapt to change, the greater the impact of the technology in student learning (Rieber & Welliver, 1989). Unfortunately, openness to change has not been witnessed often in the field of education (Linnell, 2001). If preservice teachers are exposed to educational technology that is designed to improve personal dispositions towards the constructivist approach early in their learning, it can have a critical impact on their practice of technology integration in the classroom for the long run.


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Research Questions and Hypotheses To examine the impact of the digital storytelling experience on pre-service teachers’ self-efficacy and dispositions towards educational technology, the following inter-related research questions were sought:  Research Question 1: Does exposure to digital storytelling have an impact on pre-service teachers’ self-efficacy in educational technology?  Research Question 2: Does exposure to digital storytelling have an impact on pre-service teachers’ personal disposition towards educational technology? Self-efficacy and other personal dispositions are reported to change over time as new information and experiences are acquired or situations change (House, Shane, & Herold, 1996; Torkzadeh & Dyke, 2001). It is therefore hypothesized that pre-service teachers’ self-efficacy and other personal dispositions towards educational technology will be improved with exposure to digital storytelling. Since the amount of instructional time is not a major factor influencing self-efficacy beliefs (Abbitt & Klett, 2007), and since digital storytelling can be learned in a relatively short period of time (Lasica, 2002), it is expected that the improvement of pre-service teachers’ self-efficacy and other personal dispositions towards educational technology will be visible with the experience of a digital storytelling project. Two conforming research hypotheses are, thus, created:  Research hypothesis 1: Pre-service teachers who are exposed to digital storytelling will show improved self-efficacy towards educational technology.  Research hypothesis 2: Pre-service teachers who are exposed to digital storytelling will show positive personal dispositions towards educational technology. METHODOLOGY Participants Pre-service teachers from a university in a northeastern state were recruited for the quasi-experimental study. A total of 98 undergraduate students were recruited. Participation in the study was voluntary. Participants’ demographics and computer and Internet experience are illustrated in Table

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1 and Table 2, respectively. With the small to medium effect size (f=.35), alpha of .5, the participant size of 98 resulted in the power of .964. Table 1 Demographic Characteristics of Participants Category

Ranges

Percent

Gender

Male

18

Female

80

Freshman

64

Sophomore

0

Junior

19

Senior

15

Educational enrollment

Instruments Two online survey instruments were developed for the experiment: preexperiment survey and post-experiment survey. The pre-experiment survey was designed to collect participants’ demographic information, technology experience, as well as pre-existing self-efficacy in educational technology and personal disposition including openness to change towards educational technology, willingness to participate in technology training, and willingness to work beyond the contractual work hours for technology infusion in classrooms. The post-experiment survey was designed to gather participants’ self-efficacy in educational technology and personal disposition after the experiment. The post-experiment survey also gathered participants’ perception of the digital storytelling experience. Ten questions were represented in the form of a six-point Likert scale. A modified version of the Computer Technology Integration Survey (CTIS) instrument (Wang et al., 2004) was used to measure participants’ confidence and self-efficacy in using educational technology. The original CTIS instrument includes 21 statements, with each item rated on a 5-point Likert scale (5=Strongly Agree and 1=Strongly Disagree). The modified version has 6-point Likert scale (6=Strongly Agree and 1=Strongly Disagree). Wang et al. (2004) evaluated the internal consistency of the CTIS instrument and reported a Cronbach alpha coefficient of .94 and .96 for the pre-survey and post-survey, respectively, and .968 and .976 for the modified version.

Digital Storytelling: An Empirical Study of the Impact of Digital Storytelling Table 2 Computer and Internet Experience Statistics of Participants Category Computer experience

Daily computer usage

Weekly computer access

Internet experience

Daily Internet usage

Weekly Internet access

Music edits on computer per week

Picture edits on computer per week

Video edits on computer per week

Ranges Less than 1 year 1 - 3 years 3 - 5 years 5 - 7 years 7 - 9 years More than 9 years Less than 1 hour 1 – 2 hours 2 – 3 hours 3 – 4 hours 4 – 5 hours More than 5 hours 1 - 2 days in a week 3 – 4 days in a week 5 – 6 days in a week Everyday Less than 1 year 1 - 3 years 3 - 5 years 5 - 7 years 7 - 9 years More than 9 years Less than 1 hour 1 – 2 hours 2 – 3 hours 3 – 4 hours 4 – 5 hours More than 5 hours 1 - 2 days in a week 3 – 4 days in a week 5 – 6 days in a week Everyday Less than 1 hour 1 – 2 hours 2 – 3 hours 3 – 4 hours 4 – 5 hours Less than 1 hour 1 – 2 hours 2 – 3 hours 3 – 4 hours 4 – 5 hours Less than 1 hour 1 – 2 hours 2 – 3 hours 3 – 4 hours 4 – 5 hours

Percent 0 1 2 4 25 66 1 26 36 19 11 5 1 0 12 85 0 1 3 26 35 33 3 37 36 10 8 4 0 3 11 84 71 17 7 2 1 66 24 6 1 1 95 2 0 0 1

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A modified version of the Teacher Attribute Survey (TAS) instrument (Vannatta & Fordham, 2004) was used to measure participants’ personal dispositions. Only the statements that ask about openness to change, willingness to participate in professional development and technology training, and willingness to work beyond the contractual work hours for technology infusion in classrooms were adopted. Each item asking openness to change rates on a 6-point Likert scale (6=Strongly Agree and 1=Strongly Disagree). The TAS has been shown to have strong internal reliability (e.g., Cronbach alpha = .91). The internal consistencies of the modified TAS instrument of this study were .789 and .814 for the pre-survey and post-survey, respectively. Procedures All instructors who offered educational technology courses during the Fall 2008 semester were contacted for their support with this project. All instructors (a total of three courses consisting of eight sections) supported the study. The recruited courses included five sections of a general education core course for freshmen (Instructional Technology I), two sections of an elective course for juniors (Instructional Technology: Text-based Instruction), and one section of an elective course for seniors (Instructional Technology: Text-based Instruction). At the time of research, there were no sections of educational technology courses offered for sophomores, so information for that classification is not included in this study. During normal class hours of the courses, the researcher visited participants’ classrooms. Participants were first asked to answer the pre-experiment online survey questions (via Zoomerang online survey site) and to participate in about a 30-minute tutorial on digital storytelling. The tutorial included instruction on how to create a digital story with Photo Story software (e.g., how to import pictures and music, edit pictures, add narration, add transition and picture effects, add titles, and save the storytelling project). Participants were then asked to create their own short digital stories (between three and six minutes long) on the topic “Why do I want to be a teacher?” as a take-home assignment. Although participants had a week to complete their stories, they were able to submit their work at any time before the due date. Upon submission, they were asked to answer the post-experiment online survey questions. Between the tutorial and the due date, the researcher and research assistant were available, face-to-face and online, to assist participants with creating their own digital stories. Survey responses and digital stories were recorded


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with identification numbers that do not contain any identifiable participant information. Voluntary and informed consent were obtained from participants prior to the initiation of any research activities, and it was assured that whether they chose to participate in the research study or not, the decision in no way affected their grades. Independent and Dependent Variables The independent variable of the study is the exposure to digital storytelling – more specifically, the experience of composing a short digital story. To guarantee the same tutorial was offered to multiple groups of participants, the researcher utilized a video tutorial during her instruction. Two dependent variables measured in the study were the changes in pre-service teachers’ self-efficacy and other personal dispositions such as openness to change towards educational technology, willingness to participate in technology training, and willingness to work beyond the contractual work hours. Covariate To evaluate the relative impact of participants’ previous experiences with computer and Internet use on the primary measures, those potential covariates in the study were measured and analyzed. Participants’ demographic characteristics were also analyzed. Data Analysis The responses of pre- and post-experiment surveys were downloaded from the online survey site, and the changes in responses between the two administrations of the surveys were analyzed to answer the research questions. Likert items were considered as interval-level data because equal spacing of response levels was clearly indicated (e.g., strongly disagree, disagree, somewhat disagree, somewhat agree, agree, and strongly agree) and the response levels are more than five. Statistical significance was assessed using the paired sample t-test. All results significant at p < 0.05 (two-tailed) were indicated. Collected digital stories were also reviewed as supplemental material to measure the various features utilized in stories. Statistical signifi-

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cance of previous computer and Internet experience as well as demographic characteristics were assessed using Multiple Regression, at p < 0.05. RESULTS Changes in Self-Efficacy A series of paired sample t-tests indicated that there were significant differences in participants’ self-efficacy ratings between pre- and post-surveys in general. Out of 21 self-efficacy question items, 17 showed statistically significant differences, and among those 17 question items, 11 were significant at p