Storytelling–aided Science Classroom for Learners’ Meaningful Engagement: A Critical Action Research [Unpublished Mphil Disertation]

Abstract

In my experience as a professional science teacher at the secondary level, teaching science is regarded as a challenging job by most science teachers. The abstract nature of science contents, traditional lecture-based pedagogical approaches, and assessment focused teaching and learning activities are major disempowering forces hindering students’ science learning and meaningful engagement in their science class. Critically reflecting upon my learning journey and pedagogical practices, students’ outcomes, and learning attitudes, I concluded that there must be an intervention in traditional pedagogy for students’ meaningful engagement. For this study, I chose storytelling pedagogy, a form of Arts, as an intervening tool to engage my students in meaningful ways. Intending to solve the problem on my level and transform myself from the traditional teacher as a transmitter to a constructivist teacher, I chose critical action research design, Vygotsky’s social constructivism, and Mezirow’s transformative learning theory as referent theories along with critical research paradigm as my philosophical view of knowledge construction. I conducted my study by narrating stories based on science content, observing students’ classroom engagement (Emotional, Cognitive, and Behavioral), and reflecting upon my actions throughout the study. In this study, my students studying in grade 9 in one of the private schools in Kathmandu are research participants. There were 18 participants, including 10 girls and eight boys students. Regarding the philosophical assumptions, my ontology is that there are multiple realities associated with the past, epistemology is knowledge as subjective and generated by interaction with others and critical self-reflection and axiology are value-laden. This study discovered some wonderful impacts of storytelling intervention in the science classroom. After the intervention of storytelling pedagogy, students’ engagement in the classroom was enhanced; the classroom was turned from a passive to an active learning environment and transformed me from a lecture-based teacher to a constructivist co-learner. This study explored the role of Arts in science classrooms and the importance of emotional engagement for fostering cognitive and behavioral engagement of the learners. Students ‘conformity with traditional pedagogies, difficulties in preparing stories, observing students’ behaviors while narrating, and time management were some challenges encountered while conducting this study.