The Science of Storytelling for Learning

This session draws on cognitive sciences to explain why narrative is attended to, understood, and remembered differently from decontextualised information, and how that difference can be used to design training that is more effective and more efficient. It examines the mechanisms through which story shapes learning, including attention, comprehension, emotional salience, and schema formation, and sets out the conditions under which narrative is effective alongside the conditions under which it adds cost without benefit.

• Understand the cognitive mechanisms by which narrative supports attention, comprehension, and recall, and why the intuitive assumption that every story aids learning does not hold.

• Judge when a narrative approach improves the effectiveness and efficiency of an intervention, and when it introduces extraneous load or seductive detail that undermines the intended outcome.

• Apply a small set of evidence-informed techniques for structuring narrative so that story supports the learning objective and remains subordinate to it.

Tom McDowall is the founder and principal consultant at Evolve, and an exponent of evidence-informed practice. He works with people, functions, and leadership teams to build capability and get the most out of their people. He is also the founder and chair of the IDTX event series and regularly publishes to the Instructional Design Tips Substack.