The Complexities of Digital Storytelling: Factors Affecting Performance, Production, and Project Completion

This chapter describes a pair of studies investigating factors involved in task-based learning using digital storytelling. In Study 1, the stories were analyzed using the factors of topic, time, medium, and reported technological proficiency. Student attitudes towards the tasks were gauged using a questionnaire that measured perceived task cost and value, engagement with the task, and expectancy for success on future tasks. In Study 2, three mid-task planning conditions were introduced and a questionnaire was administered to see student attitudes towards various modes of mid-task planning. The results of Study 1 suggest that digital storytelling can be incorporated into EFL classes to reduce foreign language anxiety, to provide greater opportunities to use English, and to foster ICT skills. The results of Study 2 suggest that students favor a teacher-led planning condition, and that this planning condition had a positive effect on student attitudes towards the project (value and cost).