Storytelling in the Classroom: Facilitating Cognitive Interest by Promoting Attention, Structure, and Meaningfulness

Instructors often tell stories in class as a way of explaining course material. And, the use of stories can lead to improvements in student learning. What has yet to be explained, however, is how stories might lead to changes in students’ knowledge. Using cognitive theory of multimedia learning as a guide, the current study examined data from 231 students to determine how instructional storytelling associated with students’ perceived cognitive learning operationalized as students’ cognitive interest. Results supported the contention that when instructors used course-oriented, concrete, and memorable stories, they increased students’ perceptions of cognitive interest both directly and indirectly through an increase in their attention and their perceptions of organization and integration.