Introduction
Scholars have indicated that the most effective learning occurs when students engage in self-monitoring or reflection. This process enables learners to gain a deeper understanding of their acquired knowledge, which enhances their overall learning performance. Consequently, promoting students’ ability to reflect has become a focal point in the field of education. In recent years, digital storytelling has garnered considerable attention from researchers as an innovative and effective teaching tool. Traditional, teacher-centered, lecture-based learning often involves memorizing and reciting, making it challenging for students to develop high-level thinking. By contrast, digital storytelling involves a learner-centered approach, enabling students to integrate learned concepts with their personal experiences through storytelling. This method empowers students to organize and reinterpret the knowledge that they have acquired. The integration of information technology enables students to more comprehensively share their acquired knowledge with each other and enhances the development of deep learning and high-level cognitive abilities. Although digital storytelling offers numerous benefits to teachers, the varying quality of digital stories created by students remains a notable challenge. Consequently, this study employed the reflective learning model proposed by McDrury and Alterio (2003) as an instructional scaffold to design a digital storytelling reflection platform. The platform effectively guides students through the process of creating and reflecting on digital stories, ultimately improving the overall quality of their narratives.
Literature Review
Digital storytelling closely resembles traditional storytelling; both emphasize developing thematic narratives from a specific perspective. The key difference between the two is that digital storytelling incorporates multimedia elements, such as pictures, text, voiceovers, videos, animation, and music. In addition, computer editing is used to enhance the presentation of information. Digital storytelling involves seven key elements: point of view, dramatic question, emotional content, the gift of voice, the power of the soundtrack, economy, and pacing. Studies have demonstrated that digital storytelling not only boosts students’ motivation and interest but also encourages them to express their ideas and engage in collaborative thinking. Additionally, creating digital stories helps students understand complex and abstract concepts and organize their knowledge in a personalized and meaningful manner. Moreover, collaborative small-group work stimulates student interest, and through the process of publishing and sharing, collaborative storytelling promotes peer interaction, communication and expression, problem-solving, and reflection. McDrury and Alterio’s (2003) reflective learning model comprises the following stages: story finding, storytelling, story expanding, digital story editing, and story reconstructing. The model focuses on storytelling as a framework for promoting reflective learning, with students being encouraged to express their ideas through narratives. Engaging in peer collaboration during this process enables students to share and discuss their viewpoints and experiences, which leads to further reflection on the stories and reconstruction of meaning.
Method
A total of 28 graduate students (6 men and 22 women) participated in this study. The students were randomly divided into eight groups. A one-group pretest-posttest design was adopted within the quasi-experimental research in which digital storytelling was integrated with a reflection platform for experimental teaching. To investigate whether this curriculum design enhanced participants’ reflection skills, digital storytelling self-efficacy, and collaborative digital storytelling performance, the study analyzed differences in the participants’ scores on the Questionnaire for Reflective Thinking and Digital Storytelling Self-Efficacy Scale before and after the experimental teaching. Furthermore, the effectiveness of the course was evaluated by grading each group’s presentation by using the Digital Storytelling Assessment. In addition to quantitative data, qualitative information, such as peer feedback and interviews with the participants through the digital storytelling reflection platform, was obtained, with these data serving as a supplementary reference for assessing the effects of the experiments.
Result
The preclass and postclass questionnaire results regarding reflection skills and digital storytelling self-efficacy revealed that the integration of digital storytelling with the reflection platform enhanced the graduate students’ reflection skills (deepened their thinking) and digital storytelling self-efficacy. Additionally, the participants’ collaborative digital storytelling efforts yielded favorable performance outcomes. Qualitative interviews revealed that most students attributed their enhanced reflection skills to peer feedback and collaboration. Positive feedback from peers serves as encouragement and affirmation for students, boosting students’ confidence in creating digital stories. In the current study, when provided with suggestions from peers, most of the students chose to apply those presented as constructive feedback or those that were frequently mentioned. Additionally, the students expressed that because they did not receive face-to-face feedback, they did not feel stressed about receiving the feedback, which in turn made them more willing to share their thoughts with others. During the process of collaborative digital story creation, the participants benefitted from being presented with various ideas from their peers, brainstorming with each other, exploring multiple perspectives, and reflecting on their own stories. However, some participants mentioned that they experienced little improvement in their reflective thinking because of their individual habits and traits.
Discussion and Suggestions
Although the results of this study indicate that the curriculum design improved the participants’ reflection skills, digital storytelling self-efficacy, and collaborative digital storytelling performance, this study has the limitation of having simultaneously implemented different interventions. The simultaneous use of a reflection platform, story scaffolding, peer feedback, and teamwork increases the difficulty of determining which specific teaching intervention had the most notable impact on the graduate students’ reflection skills, digital storytelling self-efficacy, and collaborative digital storytelling performance. Future research may consider independently investigating individual teaching interventions, such as digital storytelling teaching combined with a reflection platform, digital storytelling with or without peer feedback, or digital storytelling with or without teamwork. By differentiating experimental and control groups more precisely, future studies can investigate the specific impact of digital storytelling, peer feedback, and group collaboration on reflection skills.
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