An Exploratory Study of Storytelling Approach as an Instructional Tool from Educators' Perspective

In today’s education scenario, educators intentionally and unintentionally use stories as part of their teaching tool to increase students’ understanding. While storytelling is widely recognized tool in classroom teaching, its implementation and acceptance in higher education institution in Malaysia is still unclear. This paper reports a case study that explores the perception of educators in the usage of storytelling as a teaching aid in courses at Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS. The objectives of this study are to explore the usage of stories and acceptance of stories as a teaching aid in lecture as well as issues faced by the educators in utilizing the storytelling approach. This study is an exploratory case study that uses a mixed method approach. Data were collected from June until December 2008 through interviews, questionnaires and non-participant observation. Results show that 67% of the participants have used stories in their lectures. Overall, the results indicate that the storytelling approach is practiced deliberately and in deliberately by educators. The usage of storytelling has raised a number of issues such as lack of understanding and lack of awareness of the approach. However, educators believe that storytelling can facilitate the learning process in higher education and encourage the critical thinking skills in students.