The effect of understanding phrase-meaning relationship through digital storytelling on academic achievement and retention

The purpose of the current study is to reveal the effect of teaching the phrase-meaning relationship through digital storytelling on academic achievement and retention in teaching Turkish grammar. The study employed the mixed method. In the quantitative part of the study, the factorial design, one of the experimental designs, and in its quantitative part, the case study was simultaneously used. The study group of the current research is comprised of 40 8th grade students attending two different classes. As the data collection tools, a personal information form, an academic achievement test and an open-ended question form (OEQF) and a semi-structured interview form administered to the experimental group students were used. In the analysis of the qualitative data, descriptive statistics such as arithmetic means, standard deviations, percentages and frequencies were used. The normality of the data distribution was tested through skewness and kurtosis coefficients and these coefficients were found to be between +1 and -1. Moreover, the z statistic calculated by dividing the skewness coefficient by its own standard deviation was tested. As an additional proof to the normality of the distribution, Shapiro Wilk test was administered; and the equality of the variances was tested with Levene test. In the within and between-groups comparisons of the pre-test and post-test achievement scores of the experimental and control groups and their retention test scores, two-way variance analysis was used. The data collected through the OEQF and interviews conducted with the experimental group students were analyzed by using the content analysis and descriptive analysis techniques. The current study concluded that the instruction given to the experimental group students for them to understand the phrase-meaning relationship by using the digital storytelling more positively affect the secondary school 8th grade students' academic achievement and retention of what they have learned when compared to the current means of instruction given to the control group students.