Emotions and digital storytelling in the educational context: A systematic review

Abstract Both emotions and digital storytelling (DST) have an important role in learning‐teaching processes. Emotions are also important for DST. There is currently much interest in how emotion and DST are addressed together in education, how relations are established, how they are grounded and what the outcomes are. There is a need for a systematic review study in order to find answers to these questions and to give direction to new researches. This systematic review study presents an overview of emotion and DST research trends (in terms of their demographics, research foci and issues) in an educational context, how they are theoretically grounded, and their outcomes. Seventy research articles were reviewed using a mixed‐method approach combining systematic mapping and systematic review. In the studies reviewed, DST serves emotional outcomes as a learning design, multimodal pedagogy, pedagogical method, practice or tool for students, teachers, adults and families. DST provides an emotional connection, engagement, experience and safe space; supports the development of self‐dynamics such as self‐reflection and self‐awareness of emotions; facilitates emotional sharing and empathy; and develops emotional skills in the learning‐teaching process. In addition, it is found that there are deficiencies in the theoretical frameworks of the studies. Finally, the results are discussed and directions for future studies are suggested.