Jean Claude Callens: Digital Storytelling as a Mediation Tool to Support Critical Reflection

In this contribution we study the impact of learner control and of linear/non linear structured guidelines to write a digital story on reflection processes. The results reveal that when students reflect by writing a digital story, the score on (critical) reflection is rather low. Second, the results of this study confirm – at least partially – the influence of learner characteristics on the degree of (critical) reflection. Furthermore, it seems that the assumption that prior knowledge may be one of the factors that determine the effectivity of learner control is –at least partially- confimed in this study. Third, it seems that when third-year students have ample learner control, their digital stories contain more elements that refer to a critical reflection. Finally, it seems that more linear structured guidelines to write digital stories more support reflection processes. To conclude, we discuss the practical implications of this study.