Students’ Perceptions of Digital Storytelling in Higher Education

Abstract

Digital storytelling has been applied to higher education to teach hard and soft skills. Studies in health sciences show the benefit from hearing directly from patients sharing their lived experiences. In collaboration with a traumatic brain injury (TBI) survivor and his family, this paper documents higher education students providing feedback about 6 digital stories introduced into a graduate certificate program. This project examined whether students can improve their understanding of TBI through these digital stories while increasing their soft skills, such as empathy. In total, 37 students provided feedback. All students reported that the digital stories improved their understanding of TBI. The majority of students (89%) also rated the emotional quality of the digital stories as Extremely Good or Very Good. A qualitative analysis of students’ responses revealed the following themes: Perspective-Taking, Knowledge Gained and Suggestions for Improvement. Implications are discussed for schema and whole brain learning.

Keywords: Digital Storytelling; Traumatic Brain Injury; Lived Experience; Family-Centered Approach; Higher Education