Digital storytelling as an innovative approach to prehospital education : The experiences of teaching academics

Purpose. To explore teaching academics' experiences of utilising digital storytelling as an innovative approach to prehospital education.

Method. This study describes an innovative learning activity, digital storytelling, developed for an undergraduate paramedicine program. The experiences of teaching academics were then explored through semi-structured interviews. Thematic analysis was used to evaluate the data.

Results. Three themes were identified through thematic analysis. The first theme was ‘the impact of friction on learning’ which describes how a learning activity’s design can negatively impact learning. The second theme ‘connecting with the teaching resources’ outlines how having access to sufficient resources is necessary to facilitate teaching. Finally, ‘expansion opportunities’ emerged as a theme as digital storytelling was discussed as having the potential to be taught further into the curriculum.

Conclusion. Digital storytelling as a learning activity has the potential to have a positive impact on student engagement and prehospital curriculum. Academic staff expressed that while there was some friction in this learning activity’s design, they felt the digital story was valuable and worth expanding into the curriculum. To ensure a story can be successfully implemented, all teaching staff must receive adequate information and support on how the activity should be taught.

© 2024 Association of Medical Education in the Eastern Mediterranean Region (AMEEMR). This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Sponsored by King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences.