Digital Storytelling Enhancing Chinese Primary School Students’ Self-Efficacy in Mathematics Learning

Abstract

The aim of this study was to uncover how digital storytelling advances students’ self-efficacy in mathematics learning and what kinds of learning experiences contribute to self-efficacy. Four Chinese classes with 10- to 11-year-old students ( N = 121) participated in the project. The mathematics learning theme was geometry. Quantitative data was collected with questionnaires. The qualitative data was based on teachers’ and students’ interviews and observations. Both data sets showed that the students’ self-efficacy increased significantly during the project. The most important mediator was students’ perception of the meaningfulness of mathematics learning; digital storytelling enhanced the students’ ability to see mathematics learning as useful. They became more confident that they could learn mathematics and understand what they had learned. They also felt more confident in talking with their classmates about mathematical concepts. The role of self-efficacy was twofold: it supported students’ learning during the project and it increased due to meaningful mathematics learning experiences.

Development of Video-Aided Storybooks to Improve Understanding of Mathematical Concepts in Elementary School

“…The use of story-based teaching materials that utilize video also has many benefits. The benefits of learning by using picture story videos were conveyed by Niemi & Niu [28]. Using digital technology in the classroom as a teaching means creates an intersting learning atmosphere for learners and it motives students to learn autonomously [29][30][31].…”

An Overview of Digital Storytelling Studies in Classroom Education in Turkey

“…On the other hand, digital storytelling improves writing performance (Gider, 2019) and raises the attitude towards the course and the entrepreneurial spirit (Mangal & Kurtdede-Fidan, 2022). In this respect, the results of digital storytelling studies conducted at each stage of the education, including kindergarten (Preradovic et al, 2016), primary school (Niemi & Niu, 2021), secondary school (Özen & Duran, 2021), high school (Ayvaz-Tunç, 2017) and university (Aslan & Kazu, 2021) were generally found to be similar. This shows that the method is suitable for all ages and is versatile.…”

“…Öte yandan dijital hikâye anlatımı, yazma performansını ilerletmekte (Gider, 2019) ve derse yönelik tutum ile girişimcilik ruhunu yükseltmektedir (Mangal & Kurtdede-Fidan, 2022). Bu doğrultuda anaokulu (Preradovic vd., 2016), ilkokul (Niemi & Niu, 2021), ortaokul (Özen & Duran, 2021), lise (Ayvaz-Tunç, 2017) ve üniversite (Aslan & Kazu, 2021) olmak üzere eğitimin her kademesinde gerçekleştirilen dijital öyküleme araştırmalarının sonuçlarının genellikle benzerlik gösterdiği tespit edilmiştir. Bu durum, yöntemin her yaşa uygun ve çok yönlü olduğunu göstermektedir.…”

Child Anxiety Profiles in Chilean Elementary School Students and Academic Self-Attributions in Mathematics

“…Other studies could examine whether there is a causal relationship between both variables by using the profiles found in this work. In this line, further research including self-efficacy is also necessary since it is another relevant construct for understanding students' performance in mathematics (Echeverría Castro et al, 2020;Niemi & Niu, 2021;Özcan & Kültür, 2021), but it has only been examined in relation with causal self-attributions in Chile (e.g., García-Fernández et al, 2016;Pérez & Díaz, 2013;Sáez et al, 2018). Finally, even though the present study considered important forms of anxiety that affect students' development of mathematics skills, future research should analyze the relation between mathematics anxiety and causal self-attributions in order to provide specific information to this area of knowledge and, consequently, improve the intervention programs designed for this subject (Alegre et al, 2020;Buckley & Sullivan, 2021;Gabriel et al, 2020).…”