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136 | Digital Media and Storytelling in Higher Education
better on the subject knowledge test than the control group. In addition, the
DST students scored higher results on tests of self-efficacy and motivation
(Yang & Wu, 2012).
Ng and Nicholas (2015) include components of self-efficacy in their
framework of competencies for the teaching profession. Self-efficacious
teachers are seen as those who view themselves as competent and confident,
and believe that they can control pedagogical situations. In Heos (2009)
study, the self-efficacy of 98 pre-service teachers toward using digital tools for
teaching (i.e., their feeling able to use ICT tools appropriately and adequately
in the classroom) increased significantly after they were introduced to DST
(Heo, 2009). DST was also used to increase students’ conceptual self-efficacy
In Yang and Wu’s (2012) and Campbell’s (2012) experiments, and Kotluk and
Kocakaya (2017) used DST to increase students’ self-efficacy in the physics
classroom.
Student motivation was also very high in the previously mentioned
Italian PoliCultura project. The reasons for this, according to Di Blas and
Paolini (2013), were (1) the publicity given by the national initiative, (2) the
competitive environment and (3) the collaborative work. Smeda et al. (2014)
observed lower and upper-grade students in five different subject areas in an
Australian school and conducted interviews with their teachers. They found
that students showed different levels of enthusiasm at different stages of DST.
They were least enthusiastic about storyboarding and most enthusiastic about
presenting the digital stories. However, motivation was particularly high
when it came to students’ group and inter-group collaboration in terms of
technological and grammatical problem solving, and in sharing digital stories
online and connecting with other network groups. It was found that the
cooperative activities of DST provided a strong emotional and motivational
background for learners throughout the process (Smeda et al., 2014).
The relationship between self-confidence and motivation was further
investigated in a study carried out in a primary school class. Four of the
26 pupils in the experiment, aged 9-10, had special educational needs,
and five were non-native speakers of English. The student population was
heterogeneous in terms of socio-economic status. The students explored the
theme of antiquity, and the phases were divided into one session per week
for four weeks. According to the findings of the experiment, the students
effectively used the tablets in groups while interacting with each other. Their
high level of motivation was evident from their autonomous learning choices,
such as downloading editing software to their smart devices at home which
they used later on in the project. All students, especially those who had
language and/or learning difficulties at school, reported a particular sense
of achievement and pride at the end of the process. According to the teacher
who participated in the experiment, the method had a clear positive impact
on students’ text production skills, as even students who had previously been
too shy to communicate in the classroom were able to express themselves