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In my 5 years of teaching, I have encountered many students who have professed the lack of relevancy and meaningfulness science is to their lives. I do understand that many may not be as passionate about science as I. However, this was alarming to me considering how science is all around us in our day to day lives. Throughout the last several decades we have grown exponentially in knowledge and technology. America highly values knowledge. Therefore, I fear we have substituted mere knowledge for practical application for science in our real world and how it applies to us.

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Does storytelling help change students’ attitudes and perspectives towards science and make learning more meaningful to their lives?

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The definition of motivation being used will be Kwan et al (2018) work, which defines motivation as: the reason for the behavior, move to act, and the forces or desires that can activate and maintain behavior.

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There is a gap in consistency and coherence in the definition, theoretical framework, and methods of data collection surrounding motivation and engagement research that makes it challenging to take a comparable approach. A significant problem in science education lies in students’ attitudes and perspectives towards science. Research shows that motivation for science education has been declining for years due to the lack of relevance and meaningfulness to the real world (Laine et al., 2016). Bandura’s social cognitive theory and expectancy-value theory for our theoretical framework for understanding the complex nature of students’ motivation in learning will be considered.

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This framework for motivation is of upmost importance in connection to this research in helping science teaching and learning become more relevant to student lives. Expectancy-value conceptualizations of behavior have been researched for quite some time in psychology (Garcia & Patall, 2015). Expectancies refer to an individual’s beliefs of how well they will do on an upcoming task, which have different levels of value. Task values range from utility value, attainment value, intrinsic values, and cost (Garcia and Patall, 2015). Utility value is related to how the task is perceived useful to other aspects of the person’s life. Attainment value applies one’s personal importance or self-relevance or doing well on a task. Intrinsic value of the task is perceived as enjoyable or interesting. Lastly, cost related to the negative aspects of engaging in the task (Garcia and Patall, 2015).

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Science teaching and leanring has done great at knowledge. It has begun to grow in shaping skills and metacognitive thinking more recently. However, what is missing is the heart and the emotions that brings the passion. Storytelling in science as an instructional component involves a succession of narratives directly related to the content to create a more coherent, memorable, and meaningful learning experience for students. Storytelling may be able to promote a more engaging, exciting, and positive emotional experience for science learning, especially for those kids who find minimal personal connection in science. Implementing storytelling in the science curriculum should sustain the curiosity and enthusiasm that needs to be brought back to modern science teaching and learning (Rowclife, 2004). The influence on child’s emotions is pivotal in shaping positive learning experiences and storytelling is a great tool to do that.

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The researcher will be implementing a mixed-methods methodology of data collection. This will consist of a range of specific self-report surveys, experience sampling, and interviews. Self-report survey is the most common method for assessing student engagement. These are practical, easy to assess, mostly general, and not subject specific (Fredricks & McColskey, 2012). I will be using the MILS and EILS questionnaire. The MILS questionnaire is great for assessing student motivation in learning science. The EILS is great for measuring the three aspects of student engagement in learning science (Kuo et al., 2020)

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storytelling
motivation
relevant
meaningful
science teaching and learning
real world

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The research on student motivation and engagement is a timely one. There is increasing evidence that students are become disengaged to science learning. This is due largely in part that they do not see science learning as meaningful and relevant to their lives. Motivation increases student learning, whether it is because of their own innate desires to perform or accomplish a task or external factors such as rewards (Johnson, 2017). When we make learning more relevant to student lives then they are more intrinsically motivated to engage in learning. Teaching abstract theory alone is demotivating. However, showing how these theories connect to practice such as establishing relevance to local cases, relating material to everyday application, or current issues can motivate students to want to learn (Kember et al., 2008).