Hung, C. M., Hwang, G. J., & Huang, I. (2012). A Project-based digital storytelling approach to improving students’ learning motivation, problem-solving competence and learning achievement. Educational Technology & Society, 15(4), 368–379.

Oh, boy, I said to myself. Some research about project based learning and technology. I hope I’ll learn something new that I might be able to use with my students. Sadly, that hope did not come to fruition. I’m afraid I was nonplussed by the study and its design.

The intent of the study was to prove that using digital storytelling technology in a PBL environment would enhance motivation, problem-solving, and achievement, and as an afterthought, gender differences. In their literature review, the authors reviewed characteristics of the project-learning pedagogy, along with some commentary about digital storytelling. They tested their hypotheses on 117 fifth graders, who were divided into two groups. The experimental group “took part in the project-based learning with digital storytelling” (371) while the control group “experienced conventional project-based learning ” (371). They surmised that digital storytelling did, indeed, improve motivation, attitude problem-solving, and learning achievements. . .and the students had fun, too.

The study had the necessary parts–introduction, literature review, methods, data, discussion and conclusion. However, the parts were lacking in depth, detail and connections.  First, if you did not know anything about project-based learning, you wouldn’t learn much about it from the lit review. The discussion of project-based learning was convoluted and the project-based learning process was mostly indecipherable. The authors defined digital storytelling, and gave examples of its uses in education. And then they shared their research. Wait, what? Where is the information about achievement, motivation, problem-solving, and gender in the lit review? First of all, this is A LOT for one activity in one study to prove (impossible, actually, without several volumes). Second, if the authors believed that digital storytelling was a panacea, shouldn’t there be some initial research to base all of their hypotheses on? Let’s talk about the research design. The experimental group received online digital help with finding resources, and a place to take notes on the same digital page. They were able to drag and drop photos, and use photos from home. The digital tool simplified the storytelling process, making the creation of the story easy to do.( I wonder if this ease would lessen the rigor of the problem-solving process?) However, the control group also used a digital tool–PowerPoint. Huh? Isn’t PowerPoint a digital tool that can be used for storytelling? I wonder what kind of instructions were given to the conventional (Whatever does THIS mean–is there such a thing as conventional PBL? By whose definition?) PBL group? If the purpose of the study was to investigate the benefits of using technology, shouldn’t the experimental group have technology and the other one be without? Otherwise, aren’t you just testing one tech app vs another? It seems as though the authors believe that  using pre- and post-tests to measure motivation and problem-solving are valid. Are they? What about time on task, distractibility, off task time? Aren’t these equally important? And why were interviews only conducted with the experimental group? Shouldn’t you ask the same questions of the control group? Isn’t that what a control group is for? Oh, wait. The interviewees were randomly selected (that doesn’t make it all right). In several places, the authors mention cooperation/collaboration, which is a big part of the project-based learning process. I wonder if group size was controlled? The authors do mention there are limitations to generalizing the results because the study was conducted in a 5th grade science classroom.  I think it may have more problems than that.  

I have to say that after reviewing questions of potential problems to look for in research design, it was very easy to pick out shortcomings in this study. There are other finds left out just for the sake of brevity in this annotation. The topic of the study is one I am actually interested in; in fact, I’ve given presentations to state and national conferences on scientific storytelling and creativity as a classroom practice. But I don’t think I will follow this research design.