Fusion Story Form: a novel, hybrid form of story that promotes and assesses concept learning

Advocates for the use of story in science education assert that it can bolster understanding of science concepts in classroom settings and enhance interest and engagement. However, only a handful of classroom studies confirm these claims, and many of them use story as an introduction, not the primary method of content delivery. Reasons for this shortcoming include the fact that stories that teach concepts are difficult to write and learning via story is difficult to assess. This has prompted a call for development of new methods of story-based pedagogy to exploit story as a teaching tool.

This manuscript identifies one source of the difficulty of writing stories that teach science, and describes the design of the Fusion Story Form, a new, hybrid form of story that solves this difficulty. This Fusion Story Form was used to create a demonstration show suitable for informal environments. Audience surveys and embedded assessment suggest the demonstration show had a significant impact on learners’ interest, engagement, and self-efficacy, as well as on learners’ understanding of the target concepts. The possible reasons for this success and the potential of the hybrid form are also discussed.