Exploring the Impact of DST on Student Engagement and Learning Outcomes

Abstract

The curriculum taught in schools in Pakistan, do not offer much learner variability and requires the learners to adopt it regardless of their learning abilities, learning preferences, backgrounds and individuality. Static and rigid curriculum along with the pedagogic strategies followed to teach this curriculum, contribute to the disengagement in learning tasks. Even though the schools in Pakistan do have technological devices, the teaching techniques still remain the same. Teachers mostly avoid using technology in classrooms due to various reasons and even if they do make use of it, they do not go beyond showing PowerPoint Presentations to deliver instruction. The study undertaken, intends to introduce a new form of pedagogy i.e. teaching via contextually designed digital stories to and explore its impact on student learning outcomes, engagement and perception of using digital stories as an instructional tool. The participants of the study were 3rd and 4th grade students studying at a private school in Islamabad. To pursue the study, a five-part series of digital stories were designed on the topic of Habitats-chosen from the National Curriculum of Pakistan. A total of 65 students participated in the 12-day session. Two types of quasi-experimental design were used: non-equivalent control group pretest-posttest design and single-group pretest-posttest design. The pretests and posttest results unveil that using digital stories had significant impact on improving student learning outcomes. Students also displayed an overall positive perception and engagement regarding the use of digital stories as a pedagogical tool.