Honors Theses
Date of Award
Spring 5-10-2025
Document Type
Undergraduate Thesis
Department
Psychology
First Advisor
Matthew Reysen
Second Advisor
Stephanie Miller
Third Advisor
Emily Donahoe
Relational Format
Dissertation/Thesis
Abstract
The present study explored the effectiveness of storytelling as a teaching method in enhancing memory performance for educational material compared to traditional lecture-based instruction. Memory plays a crucial role in learning, and effective teaching strategies should facilitate information encoding, retention, and retrieval. Storytelling, an ancient yet often overlooked pedagogical tool, has been shown to engage students emotionally and cognitively, making presented content more memorable. In the present study, participants were randomly assigned to either a storytelling-based instruction group or a traditional lecture group. Both groups received instruction on the ASSURE Model and were tested immediately after the lesson and again one week later to assess retention. Data analysis focused on comparing retention test scores between the two groups. Results indicated no statistically significant differences in performance between the storytelling and lecture conditions following both an immediate test and a delayed test a week later. These findings challenge the assumption that storytelling inherently improves recall and highlight the need for further research to explore its effectiveness under different conditions.
Recommended Citation
Stephens, Hailey, "Storytelling: A Natural Mnemonic" (2025). Honors Theses. 3210.
https://egrove.olemiss.edu/hon_thesis/3210
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