The Effectiveness of Digital Storytelling on Self-Efficacy and Critical Thinking of Secondary Elementary Students

Science and technology in the field of education gives importance to the methods and techniques that used to develop the educational system quantitatively and qualitatively. In the current educational process, parents evaluate the quality of their children's education based on their academic performance instead of the child's all-round development. In addition, traditional teaching methods do not prepare students to live in the 21st century. Students in the 21st century must move beyond the basic knowledge in the subject field and look for more important issues such as acquiring skills, having the skills of self-efficacy and critical thinking by current students is one of the challenges of the education system. It is necessary to examine appropriate teaching methods that promote these two skills in learners and use all the available capacities in online education to improve self-efficacy and critical thinking skills, because teaching strategies are advancing with the significant development of technology. Education should gradually shift its focus from the physical space of the classroom to virtual environments. Also, considering the impact of self-efficacy and thinking on environmental and cultural factors, considering that education is also an acquired and cultural activity, and considering that second grade students are highly influenced by the environment, usually due to playfulness, attention and interest. They do not teach and this is a weakness for them, stories can play a very important role in the development of a student's personality. Parents and teachers devote most of their time to children's educational issues, and students spend most of their time in passive learning at home and school, and suffer from the difficulty and dryness of lessons and anxiety about exams and grades. In this way, most of the parents and teachers stay away from the main goal of education, which is to raise creative, innovative and efficient people. Considering that no research has yet investigated the effect of digital storytelling, which is a practical method, therefore, the researcher decided to investigate its effect on students' self-efficacy and critical thinking, so that the results will help the authorities to use the method. Use appropriate tools and tools to activate students in the learning process and flourish their different talents, including the development of self-efficacy and critical thinking. The aim of this research is investigating the effect of digital storytelling on the self-efficacy and critical thinking of second grade elementary school students in the Shad system.

This research was a quasi-experimental study with a pre-test-post-test design with a control group. The statistical population included all the second grade female students of Gonbadkavus city in the academic year of 1399-1400. The number of members of each of the control and experimental groups was 10 people; who were placed in two control and experimental groups as a random replacement. Digital storytelling intervention did for the experimental group, while the control group was storytelling in the traditional way. Before and after the implementation of the experiment, pre-test and post-test conducted for two experimental and control groups. Critical Thinking Questionnaire (CTD) and Standard Self-Efficacy Questionnaire of Children and Adolescents (SEQ-C) used to collect data.

The statistical methods used in this research included descriptive statistics (mean, standard deviation) and inferential statistics (multivariate covariance test). According to the results of covariance analysis and adjusted averages, and taking into account the limitations of the research, it said that digital storytelling has been effective in increasing the self-efficacy and critical thinking of second grade students in a happy online environment.The frameworks set by the official curriculum create a limited space for teachers to create and implement educational scenarios according to student needs. As a result, the scope of the teacher's action is limited. However, digital storytelling in schools creates a combined context of action and meaning for students and teachers. In this context, learning opportunities appear both informally and as the results of guided formal education. Therefore, it is suggested that according to the positive results of the research conducted in the field of digital storytelling, teachers, especially teachers working in the primary level, should use digital storytelling either as an assignment for students or as an educational video by the teacher himself. Use and do not see the methods of educating students as exclusive to the official curriculum and expand it. Digital storytelling is effective, accessible and low-cost, and based on research results, it has significant effects on students' deep learning; therefore, this method can be used by any teacher and applicable to any class. There are limitations in every research project that takes into account in the correct interpretation of the results. One of the limitations of the research was that the examined sample was limited to one of the villages of Gonbad Kavos city, so one should be careful in generalizing its results. In addition, boys were not included in this study.Therefore, it suggested that the storytelling method used in other subjects such as sociology, cultural studies, etc. or even in other subjects. It can also be useful to include this method in teachers' tests. Holding webinars to acquaint teachers with active learning methods such as storytelling, film screening, puzzles, etc. It will improve the quality of students' learning at different levels of education.