The impact of digital storytelling on Iranian EFL learners ‘motivational self, and self-disclosure

doi:10.21203/rs.3.rs-3735432/v1

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Research Article

The impact of digital storytelling on Iranian EFL learners ‘motivational self, and self-disclosure

https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-3735432/v1

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Digital stories are nowadays a rather well-known foreign language teaching material, especially produced by and for the EFL learners. Moreover, it is rather widely believed that producing digital stories is beneficial for the learners of English since they help them better develop their language skills, along with their digital literacy and (critical) thinking skills, as well. This study aimed at investigating the effect of using two types of digital storytelling, i.e., asynchronous and synchronous digital storytelling, on the EFL learners' motivational self and self-disclosure. To this end, a quasi-experimental design with an experimental and a comparison group was devised in which the learners’ language proficiency and gender were controlled variables. Sixty-five lower intermediate EFL learners were conveniently selected, and then were homogenized based on their scores on Oxford Placement Test (OPT). Then two questionnaires with Likert-scale items were used to measure their motivational self and self-disclosure before and after the intervention. The results of the study indicated that, with regard to their motivation, unlike what was observed before the intervention, the learners in the two groups were not only different in terms of their ought-to self, but also different in terms of their ideal self after the intervention. In terms of their ought-to self the learners in synchronous group had stronger beliefs. These orientations were very similar to those they had before the course in terms of instrumentality. However, the synchronous group changed in terms of their ideal self. In terms of self-disclosure, it was found that learners in both groups were more willing to disclose themselves after the course.

Asynchronous

Digital storytelling

Self-disclosure

Move analysis Self-disclosure Synchronous

Among the various paths of employing digital technology in language teaching, EFL teachers has adopted digital storytelling (DST) as one of the promising chances of language teaching. However, little empirical research has been done on the impacts of using DST in EFL classes (Rahimi and Yadollahi, 2017). Besides, while a variety of technologies have been used in the literature of digital storytelling, the comparative effects of online and offline digital storytelling on language skills progress is open to further research (Sudarmaji et al., 2020). Despite the fact that there have been many studies with regard to offline storytelling or the conventional ways of using storytelling techniques in EFL classes in previous decades supporting its usefulness (Assauri et al., 2022), there have been few studies in Iran touching digital storytelling and its effect on literacy skills (Rahimi and Yadollahi, 2017), listening skill (Tahriri, Tous and MovahedFar, 2015) and vocabulary knowledge (Haerazi and Kazemian, 2021) of EFL learners, and thus little is known about the effect of implementing online digital storytelling on the EFL learners' speaking performance and L2 self. In addition, this research is innovative in terms of using digital storytelling in synchronous and asynchronous formats which are considered to be a new approach to using digital storytelling according to Iranian context where online digital storytelling is not consistently available in EFL classes.

Despite the presence of plausible research results on the effectiveness of DST on language skills, little, if any, research has been conducted on the effects of DST on learners’ selves. The link between DST and research participants’ selves has been limited to very few attempts in non-educational contexts (e.g., Putri et al., 2021) and teacher training within the realm of educational research (e.g Demirbaş and Şahin, 2020). DST as a technological opportunity has the potential to provide teachers or teacher candidates with a variety of the views of themselves as teachers (Habibi and Widyantoro, 2020). If so, it can be hypothesized that there may be a link between DST and EFL learners’ selves in terms of helping them have a better view of the motivational selves, especially ideal selves and ought to selves. Implications of DST will them be a better mentoring, and maintenance of the complexities of EFL classroom teaching for teachers who may gain better understanding of their learners’ motivational selves via going through the learners DSTs.

Having been informed with the previous attempts to apply digital storytelling for speaking instruction in the field of English language teaching, the researcher invested on the current research gaps. The first research gap to be filled in this study was to investigate the effects of different types of storytelling, i.e., synchronous versus asynchronous, on EFL learners' motivational Self. The second purpose of this research was to probe any difference between the effects of synchronous and asynchronous digital storytelling on EFL learners' self-disclosure. It is worth mentioning that, considering the current plethora of research on the use of digital storytelling within the field of teaching speaking, little research has been done on the link between DST and motivational self-system and there has been no research on the connection between DST and learners' self-disclosure.

Digital materials and storytelling

Storytelling is believed to reinforce learners' language skills and imagination and acquaint them with moral values, as well (Arroba and Acosta,2021). It also provides a fruitful context for shaping learners' thinking skills, developing their logical reasoning, and strengthening their critical thinking skills (Haerazi and Nunez, 2022). Nowadays, storytelling has been integrated with new technologies, especially, through using digital multimedia, which is, according to Ahmad and Yamat (2020), is applying a computer to exchange content through a collection of texts, sounds, images with interfaces and tools allowing interacting and communication.

Digital storytelling, as one of the most prominent ways of using multimedia in language teaching, is also reliant on verbal and non-verbal symbols in different contexts (Vercellotti, 2015). Within EFL instructional context it is most likely based on personal experiences, and anecdotes and generally, may not last more than a few minutes. According to Dolba et al., (2022), DSTs are used for teaching a specific educational goal, describing topics related to educational content, and help students to better understand an educational goal by telling personal stories related to educational content.

Learner motivation

Within this route of research, the theory of possible selves (PS) represents views on motivation in terms of learners’ ideas of what they may become, what they want to be and what they are scared of being. It provides a conceptual link between motivation and self-concept (Cantor et al., 1986). Based on this theory, Dornyei (2008) developed a new conceptualization of motivation to learn L2, which is called “L2 Motivational Self System”, the center of which is the ideal self (IS), referring to the attributes a learner ideally likes to have, including personal hopes or wishes. It also encompasses ought-to self (OS), the attributes a learner believes s/he ought to have, i.e., such as those imposed by parents or teachers. As Csizér and Dornyei (2005) argues, provided that proficiency in English is part of a learner’s IS or OS, s/he will be strongly motivated to learn English because of his or her psychological desire to decrease the incongruity between his or her current self and future selves.

Future self will have significant psychological reality in the current imaginative experiences of EFL learners if they envision themselves as competent English speakers. That is, future self is actually continuous with the learner’s current self. Thus, if EFL learners engage or given a chance to engage their current selves in classroom interactions or to ‘speak as themselves’ and express ‘transportable identities’ they will engage directly with their future possible selves and see themselves as English speakers within the realm of their current communicative competence.

Since in many EFL settings, involving learners in meaningful learning opportunities is not possible and learning opportunities are not fairly distributed, expression of their motivation and identity is not possible, either (McCaslin, 2009). “These motivations and identities are shaped, in part, by the social relationships that support and validate them; or as she writes: ‘What we do and in connection with whom inform who we might become” (McCaslin, 2009 p.138). Thus, finding a pedagogical way to help learners express their selves are of great significance in motivating learners. Accordingly, self-disclosure is viewed as an alternative in the related literature.

Self-disclosure, EFL learning and motivation

In traditional EFL classroom, teacher-fronted activities are what learners generally face (umber of positive learning results (Henry and Thorsen, 2021). In such a class, EFL teachers generally spend a considerable amount of time covering course content describing the meanings of new words and expressions and explaining English language structure. Modern methods of teaching English tried to deviate from this monotonous tiring mode of instruction. A recent innovation in education is self-disclosure which was borrowed from counselling and psychology. Similar to other teachers teaching other subjects than English, EFL teachers adopted this technique in their classes. Teachers try self-disclose themselves by sharing some personal information, sharing personal stories, and expressing their personal beliefs (Martin et al., 2009).

McBride and Wahl (2005) stated that self-disclosure is a strategy teachers use to build up an immediate classroom atmosphere which enhances physical and psychological closeness among learners. It has long been proved that teacher verbal behavior, such as sharing personal examples, addressing learners by their given names, and use of jokes and humor creates a more immediate classroom atmosphere (MacIntyre, 2020) which enhances affective and cognitive learning (Zarrinabadi and Pawlak, 2021).

However, it has to be noted that the majority of research in the field of teaching English as a foreign language was dedicated to teacher self-disclosure and its effect on the learners’ motivation among other variables. There seems to be a huge gap in the current studies on self-disclosure in terms of its use by the students for the students’ increasing motivation to learn English. Furthermore, it has not been extensively tied up to the online instruction and online learning tools, which was one of the objectives of this study. In line with the purpose of the study, the following research questions were proposed:

What are the effects of synchronous and asynchronous digital storytelling on Iranian EFL learners' motivational self?

What are the effects of synchronous and asynchronous digital storytelling on Iranian EFL learners' self-disclosure?

Participants of the study

The participants in this study were 65 male EFL learners in a private language institute. The age of the participants was between 20 and 30 years who were learning English at private language institute simultaneously. They were selected based on convenient sampling method. The participants were randomly assigned to different groups, the synchronous digital storytelling group (SDST) (n= 37) and asynchronous digital storytelling group (ADST) (n= 28).

Instruments

This study employed a quasi-experimental design in order to answer the research questions as the choice of the method was determined by the aim of the research, the sample under investigation, and the data to be collected. The choice of this method was justified by the fact that it could provide consistent, comprehensive, and valid data to answer the research questions. It is also justified by the fact that the purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of synchronous and asynchronous DST on the participants’ speaking accuracy, speaking fluency, motivation and self-disclosure. Accordingly, DST-based instruction is the independent variable which was measured on a nominal scale. In addition, the speaking accuracy, speaking fluency, motivation and self-disclosure were the dependent variables which were measured on interval scales. Moreover, it has to be mentioned that the learners’ proficiency level, which was measured on interval scale, was the controlled variable of the study. There were three instruments in this study, Oxford Placement Test (OPT), motivation questionnaire and a self-disclosure questionnaire.

Oxford Placement Test

To ensure the homogeneity of the participants, Oxford Placement Test (OPT) developed by Oxford University Press and University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate (2003) was administered. The test included 100 multiple-choice items and cloze passages with multiple-choice items measuring grammar and vocabulary; that is, half of the test examines the grammar knowledge of the participants and the other half measured their vocabulary knowledge. Both formats are used for measuring the vocabulary and grammar knowledge of the participants. The OPT had been already validated in many countries through administering to more than 5,000 learners. In this study, the reliability of the test has been measured using KR-21 and was equal to .88 which indicated an acceptable level of reliability of the scores.

Motivation questionnaire

In order to measure the learners’ motivation in the study, the researcher used a questionnaire as an instrument. The motivation questionnaire used by Taguchi, Magid, and Pappi (2009) was used in this study. This motivation questionnaire consisted of 20 items measuring ideal self (10 items) and ought-to self (10-tems) on 6-point Likert scale. The reliability was found to be .83 using Cronbach alpha.

Self-disclosure questionnaire

In the questionnaire, the researcher used 9 items originally developed by Qian and Scott (2007) to measure self-disclosure of the EFL learners in this study. This instrument consisted of nine seven-point Likert-type items which were adapted from an older scale originally developed by Buhrmester, et al., (1988). Cronbach’s alpha reliability for the questionnaire items was .83 in this study.

Data collection procedure

To start with, about 90 students whose ages ranged from 20 to 30 were recruited based on their scores on OPT. Those whose score fell within 2 standard deviations below and above the mean score, including 65 students, were chosen to take part in the research. Because the classes were held online, those students who did not have a computer at home were excluded from the research. They studied in different classes and even different schools but the researcher taught them at the institute. Participants were randomly divided into two groups, namely synchronous and asynchronous, both of which were accompanied with teacher's corrective feedback on their speaking accuracy.

In session two, pretest was administered to the participants of both groups to measure their speaking accuracy prior to the research. In session three, both groups were instructed on how to take part in classes, which were held in Skyroom platform, how to upload and use the story files containing their stories in the provided space. The synchronous and asynchronous groups were both further instructed on how to use the digital storytelling app, i.e., Photo Story 3, and what they were expected to do in their digital stories. The participants in both groups also were asked to fill in the questionnaires.

Both groups took two one-hour and a half online classes per week using the Skyroom platform. The intervention lasted for twenty sessions. All the groups used the book "Top Notch 2B". The intervention for both groups were based on task-based digital storytelling in which students in both groups were to choose a topic for their digital stories, reflect on their topic and come up with a plot for their work, make a storyboard and then read it to the whole class and receive feedback on their stories both from the teacher and other students. It is worth mentioning that the synchronous group made the plot in the same session when the theme of the story was introduced and then made the digital story after they left the class and uploaded it as their assignment. However, the asynchronous group made their DSTs after they left the class so they had enough time to reflect on their story, the content and narration. They made the story and then uploaded it to be corrected by the teacher. Then, they were required to make changes or revise their stories in case it was necessary.

For the following session they found images, music, video clips, recorded their own voices and put all these stuffs together using Photo Story 3 app. Next, they shared their stories with the whole class. The synchronous group had discussions about each other's digital stories, and received feedback on their digital stories from their teacher or sometimes from other students before they produce their DSTs in Photo Story 3. However, the asynchronous group had the same procedure in almost the same duration after they submitted their photo stories. The discussion started with the overall comments on the story. Then the students were asked about the missing details in the story and the ambiguities of the story. Finally, they discussed the morale of the study and expressed their ideas about the values the story emphasized or violated.

This treatment was almost similar for both groups. However, the synchronous group received feedback on their digital stories as well as their speaking accuracy including pronunciation, lexical and grammatical accuracy during their classroom discussion, and were helped to correct their speaking errors through teacher or peer feedback. The major difference between the two groups was that the synchronous group made the story in the same session when the topic of DST was introduced while the asynchronous group developed their story out of the class. That is, they shared their story with delay when they made their presentation but the synchronous group made the plot of the story first and narrated their stories in the class but presented the completed version later in the next session.

The corrective feedback in both groups included the teacher or sometimes peer correction of (1) the morpho-syntactic errors on word order, tense, conjugation, and particles, (2) the phonological errors, (3) the suprasegmental errors such as stress and intonation (4) the lexical error when the learners used vocabulary inappropriately or they code-switched to their first language because of their lack of lexical knowledge and (5) the semantic and pragmatic errors when misunderstanding of a learner’s utterance, even if there are no grammatical, lexical or phonological errors. In addition, among a variety of strategies such as recasts, explicit correction, metalinguistic correction and cue, elicitation, and clarification requests, the teacher heavily relied on metalinguistic correction and cue.

In metalinguistic feedback provided for the group, the teacher did not provide the correct form right at the beginning. The teacher pushed down the current speech of the learner and posed questions or provided comments or information related to the formation of the student's utterance (for example, "Do we say it like that?" "That's not how you say it in English," and "Is it simple present tense?"). Then, the teacher concluded the points by providing a brief metalinguistic explanation or reminding of the erroneous point. It is worth mentioning that there is a more extensive debate on the differences; however, the present study was going to operationally define metalinguistic corrective feedback as briefly as mentioned above, that is, noticing the erroneous form through presenting yes/no questions first and then providing the correct form. The following examples show the manner of providing corrective feedback actually occurred:

Example 1:

S: … when you are go to someone's new house, … you …

T: Is your verb simple present?

S: Excuse me?

T: Your verb…. Are go

S: Present… yes

T: For simple present tense you have to say "go", there isn't any "are go" in English, when you use "are" you have to say "are going", you are using present continuous tense, remember? …

S: Yes, excuse me…

T: Ok… Say again…

S: When you go you go to someone's house, you have to buy a gift for him or her….

Example 2:

S: … if we lend something from our friend, …. we should return it on time…

T: Lend means give and borrow means get… you have to use borrow here…

S: Yes… [laughs]… borrow

T: Well… you were talking about punctuality…

The teacher relied on the naturalness of feedback provision regarding the erroneous forms, keeping in mind that the speaking task may not be pushed down. It is worth mentioning that, in both groups, feedback provision process started with reformulation of the sentence and if necessary, provision of brief metalinguistic feedback. The following examples show the manner of providing corrective feedback actually occurred:

Example 3:

S: … if we live in a country, we must to become familiar with their culture…

T: There is not “ to” after Modals…OK… continue

S: must become familiar … and know what they do in different situations…

Example 4:

S: … usually you have pain in your bones and feel nausea…

T: … use adjective after feel…

S: feel nauseous… yes… and you have a bad headache…

In session 20, learners in both groups were given the post-test parallel to the speaking pre-test given at the beginning of the course, to see if the participants' speaking accuracy had any meaningful differences after the course and if the teacher's corrective feedback on learners' speaking pronunciation, grammatical and lexical errors have made any difference on their post-test speaking scores in terms of fluency. The questionnaires were distributed for the groups to see if their motivation and self-disclosure changed after the courses

Intervention

The preparation of sample digital stories had three stages pre-production, production and presentation (Frazel et al., 2011). In the pre-speaking stage, the topic of speaking was introduced with warm-up questions and short discussion so that language learners would be interested and motivated to do speaking activities. In the speaking phase, sample digital stories were shown in both groups. However, in the synchronous group, and students watched and listened to the story provided by the teacher as the sample. Then they were asked to share their stories with the class. Having shared their stories and received feedback, they were supposed to take their stories home and develop it into a digital story file and share it in the next session.

The plan for the asynchronous group included watching the narration of the sample story provided by the teacher out of the class so that they had chances to record their stories out of the class after several recordings if needed. In the post-speaking phase, students completed a variety of assignments including their digital story clips and shared them with the class. Then their classmates could also watch the clips and reflect on their plot and narrated their story and share their ideas about the story if they wished. They shared their recorded files with the teacher to be corrected and commented on. The purpose of these assignments was to assess their understanding of the theme and to resolve possible problems. It is worth mentioning that on order to validate the digital content produced by the learners, the clips uploaded by the learners were monitored by the researchers and an outsider expert who was an experienced expert teacher trainer. The consensus among them was the point of reference for digital-story validation in this study. Provided that the validity of the content was not approved, the learner had to make up for that.

However, the synchronous group, having watched the sample clips prepared by the teacher, started thinking on their own stories which were based on their own experience or the one from one of their relatives or acquaintances. They were allowed to make up their own stories based on their imaginative events. Then, they shared their stories with their teachers in the class.

To see if there was a difference between the effects of synchronous and asynchronous digital storytelling on Iranian EFL learners' motivational Self, one-way ANCOVA was run in which motivation questionnaire scores collected before the intervention were the covariant and the motivation questionnaire scores collected after the intervention were inserted as the dependent variable. The results of analysis are shown below.

Table 1

Descriptive Statistics for Motivation Scores of the Participants before and after the Intervention
Group		Mean	Std. Deviation	N
Asynchronous	After	43.53	3.45	28
	Before	25.75	2.55	28
Synchronous	After	48.18	4.98	37
	Before	27.36	4.13	37

As shown in Table 1, the results showed that the level of motivation improved in both groups and the learners’ motivational self in both groups were in a better state after the interventions conducted in both groups. In order to compare the results, one-way ANCOVA was run after the assumptions were confirmed.

Table 2

One-way ANCOVA for motivational self- disclosures
Source	Type III Sum of Squares	df	Mean Square	F	Sig.	Partial Eta Squared
Corrected Model	3687.39	2	1843.69	255.12	.000	.892
Intercept	76.44	1	76.44	10.57	.002	.146
Motivation1	3326.76	1	3326.76	455.73	.000	.881
Group	47.16	1	47.16	6.43	.013	.095
Error	448.05	62	7.22
Total	504157.00	65
Corrected Total	4135.44	64

As shown in Table 2, it can be concluded the asynchronous group did not outperform the synchronous group in terms of developing motivational self (F (65,1) = 6.43, p = .01 < .05). Accordingly, it can be argued that the hypothesis stating that there is no significant difference between the effects of synchronous and asynchronous digital storytelling on the motivational self of the intermediate EFL learners is rejected and according to the observed mean scores of the two groups in can be argued that the synchronous group outperformed the asynchronous group. In addition, the eta square which reflects the effect size of the instruction types, shows that the difference was negligible (.09). However, the results confirmed that the learners in both the groups made improvements in terms of their motivational self after the intervention (F (65,1) = 455.73, p = .00 < .05). Moreover, with regard to the eta square, it can be argued that the improvement was very large (.14).

Further analyses of the data from the questionnaire were done by comparing the motivation of the learners before and after teaching speaking using synchronous and asynchronous DST. The results are shown below.

Table 3

Comparison of asynchronous and synchronous groups in terms of their motivation before DST instruction
Items	Group	N	Mean	SD	t-test
Items	Group	N	Mean	SD	t	P
1	Asynchronous	28	4.21	.91	1.45	.15
1	Synchronous	37	3.91	.72	1.45
2	Asynchronous	28	4.10	.83	.25	.80
2	Synchronous	37	4.16	.89	.25
3	Asynchronous	28	4.25	.75	.03	.97
3	Synchronous	37	4.24	.86	.03
4	Asynchronous	28	4.07	.66	.05	95
4	Synchronous	37	4.08	.72	.05
5	Asynchronous	28	4.03	.99	1.75	.08
5	Synchronous	37	3.54	1.22	1.75
6	Asynchronous	28	4.03	1.17	.43	.66
6	Synchronous	37	3.91	1.08	.43
7	Asynchronous	28	4.17	.77	1.56	.12
7	Synchronous	37	3.89	.69	1.56
8	Asynchronous	28	3.89	.83	1.13	.26
8	Synchronous	37	3.67	.70	1.13
9	Asynchronous	28	3.92	.81	1.13	.26
9	Synchronous	37	3.70	.77	1.13
10	Asynchronous	28	3.39	1.32	1.16	.24
10	Synchronous	37	3.75	1.14	1.16
11	Asynchronous	28	4.21	.73	.01	.99
11	Synchronous	37	4.21	.75	.01
12	Asynchronous	28	4.35	.73	.75	.45
12	Synchronous	37	4.21	.75	.75
13	Asynchronous	28	2.82	1.68	3.24	.00
13	Synchronous	37	3.91	1.11	3.24
14	Asynchronous	28	2.10	1.35	4.95	.00
14	Synchronous	37	3.67	1.27	4.95
15	Asynchronous	28	2.03	1.03	4.06	.00
15	Synchronous	37	3.35	1.43	4.06
16	Asynchronous	28	4.39	.68	1.22	.12
16	Synchronous	37	4.16	.79	1.22
17	Asynchronous	28	2.00	.94	2.85	.00
17	Synchronous	37	2.86	1.34	2.85
18	Asynchronous	28	4.32	.61	1.10	.27
18	Synchronous	37	4.13	.71	1.10
19	Asynchronous	28	4.25	.58	.86	.38
19	Synchronous	37	4.10	.69	.86
20	Asynchronous	28	3.25	.44	.63	.52
20	Synchronous	37	3.35	.75	.63

The difference between the two groups with regard to their motivation was mainly in terms of their ought-to motivation. It has to be mentioned that the two groups were different with regard to items 13, 14 and 17, all of which measuring ought-to self. That is, the synchronous group had a higher ought-to self-motivation. They believed that learning English is more necessary because people surrounding them expect them to do so, their parents believed that they must study English to be an educated person, and it will have a negative impact on their life if they do not learn English. Considering the three items, it can be concluded that the learners were mainly more instrumentally motivated to learn English. However, as shown in Table 5, none of those issues were visible after the course; that is, the instrumentality was not the main reason the learners had, to practice their English anymore. The same analytical procedure was adopted for the posttest. The results are shown in Table 4, below.

Table 4

Comparison of asynchronous and synchronous groups in terms of their motivation after DST instruction
Items	Group	N	Mean	SD	t-test
Items	Group	N	Mean	SD	t	P
1	Asynchronous	28	4.42	.50	.15	.87
1	Synchronous	37	4.40	.64	.15
2	Asynchronous	28	4.39	.62	2.09	.04
2	Synchronous	37	4.78	.82	2.09
3	Asynchronous	28	4.39	.73	2.01	.04
3	Synchronous	37	4.72	.60	2.01
4	Asynchronous	28	4.39	.62	.78	.43
4	Synchronous	37	4.51	.60	.78
5	Asynchronous	28	4.39	.73	1.84	.07
5	Synchronous	37	4.70	.61	1.84
6	Asynchronous	28	4.46	.74
6	Synchronous	37	4.45	.76
7	Asynchronous	28	4.46	.57	.25	.98
7	Synchronous	37	4.40	.64	.25
8	Asynchronous	28	4.28	.46	.38	.70
8	Synchronous	37	4.40	.64	.38
9	Asynchronous	28	4.28	.46	.83	.40
9	Synchronous	37	4.40	.64	.83
10	Asynchronous	28	3.96	1.17	.84	.39
10	Synchronous	37	4.45	.85	.84
11	Asynchronous	28	4.32	.72	2.99	.05
11	Synchronous	37	4.70	.61	2.99
12	Asynchronous	28	4.06	.83	2.29	.02
12	Synchronous	37	4.84	1.75	2.29
13	Asynchronous	28	4.35	.86	.21	.83
13	Synchronous	37	4.56	.86	.21
14	Asynchronous	28	4.21	1.14	.96	.33
14	Synchronous	37	4.62	.86	.96
15	Asynchronous	28	3.50	1.66	1.59	.11
15	Synchronous	37	4.29	1.23	1.59
16	Asynchronous	28	4.57	.74	.52	.59
16	Synchronous	37	4.67	.81	.52
17	Asynchronous	28	2.92	1.65	2.19	.03
17	Synchronous	37	3.83	1.64	2.19
18	Asynchronous	28	4.57	.690	.90	.36
18	Synchronous	37	4.40	.76	.90
19	Asynchronous	28	4.46	.57	.31	.75
19	Synchronous	37	4.51	.65	.31
20	Asynchronous	28	4.00	.51	1.33	.18
20	Synchronous	37	4.21	.85	1.33

Unlike what was reported for Table 4, the learners in the two groups were not only different in terms of their ought-to self, items 12 and 17, but also different in terms of their ideal self, items 2 and 3. In terms of their ought-to self the learners in synchronous group had stronger beliefs and believed that they have to study English, because, if they do not study it, their parents will be disappointed with them and it will have a negative impact on their life if they do not learn English. These orientations were very similar to those they had before the course in terms of instrumentality. However, the synchronous group changed in terms of their ideal self in that they believed that they can imagine themselves living abroad and using English effectively for communicating with the locals and they can imagine a situation where they are speaking English with foreigners. These two significant changes are in line with their advancement in terms of their fluency, as reported above.

In order to see if was a difference between the effects of synchronous and asynchronous digital storytelling on Iranian EFL learners' self-disclosure, one-way ANCOVA was run in which self-disclosure questionnaire scores collected before the intervention were the covariant and the self-disclosure questionnaire scores collected after the intervention were inserted as the dependent variable. The results of analysis are shown below.

Table 5

Descriptive statistics for self-disclosure scores of the participants before and after the intervention
Group		Mean	Std. Deviation	N
Asynchronous	After	85.00	8.00	28
	Before	73.85	7.50	28
Synchronous	After	89.75	7.53	37
	Before	76.83	6.99	37

Table 6

One-way ANCOVA for self-disclosure
Source	Type III Sum of Squares	Df	Mean Square	F	Sig.	Partial Eta Squared
Corrected Model	546.54	2	273.27	23.74	.00	.434
Intercept	185.08	1	185.08	16.07	.00	.206
Self-disclosure	502.96	1	502.96	47.96	.00	.413
Group	.68	1	.68	.05	.84	.001
Error	713.67	62	11.51
Total	78523.00	65
Corrected Total	1260.21	64
a. R Squared = .434 (Adjusted R Squared = .415)

As shown in Table 6, it can be concluded the asynchronous group did not outperform the synchronous group in terms of developing self-disclosure (F (65,1) = .05, p = .84 > .05). Accordingly, a conclusion can be reached that the hypothesis stating that there is no significant difference between the effects of synchronous and asynchronous digital storytelling on self-disclosure of intermediate EFL learners is rejected. However, according to the observed eta square, it has to be concluded that the difference is negligible (.00). Additionally, the results confirmed that the learners in the both groups made improvements in terms of their self-disclosure after the intervention (F (65,1) = 47.96, p = .00 < .05). Moreover, with regard to the eta square, reflecting the effect size, it can be argued that the improvement was medium (.20).

In order to better consider the differences between the synchronous and asynchronous groups in terms of their self-disclosure after and before the DST instruction, a paired sample t-test was run. The results are shown below.

Table 7

Comparison of asynchronous and synchronous groups in terms of their Self-disclosure before DST instruction
Items	Group	N	Mean	SD	t-test
Items	Group	N	Mean	SD	t	P
1	Asynchronous	28	2.64	.911	1.30	.19
1	Synchronous	37	2.94	.94
2	Asynchronous	28	2.64	.91	2.44	.01
2	Synchronous	37	3.18	.87
3	Asynchronous	28	3.25	.79	.29	.77
3	Synchronous	37	3.18	.84
4	Asynchronous	28	2.75	.751	2.25	.02
4	Synchronous	37	3.24	.954
5	Asynchronous	28	3.50	1.00	.29	.76
5	Synchronous	37	3.56	.83
6	Asynchronous	28	2.64	.82	.75	.45
6	Synchronous	37	2.83	1.16
7	Asynchronous	28	2.35	.91	2.21	.03
7	Synchronous	37	2.83	.83
8	Asynchronous	28	3.60	.73	.78	.14
8	Synchronous	37	3.45	.76
9	Asynchronous	28	2.28	.93	1.45	.15
9	Synchronous	37	2.64	1.03

As shown in Table 7, learners in the synchronous and asynchronous were almost the same in terms of their self-disclosure orientations except for items 2, 4 and 7 which reflected the readiness of the synchronous group for a better self-disclosure than that of the asynchronous group. Based on the results, the learners in the synchronous group were more prepared in terms of showing their softer, more sensitive side in their stories, letting down their protective ‘‘outer shell’’ in their stories, and being willing to reveal their hatred toward someone they know in their stories. The same analytical procedure was followed for the data obtained from the asynchronous and synchronous groups after the DST instruction. The results are shown in Table 8.

Table 8

Comparison of asynchronous and synchronous groups in terms of their self-disclosure after DST instruction
Items	Group	N	Mean	SD	t-test
Items	Group	N	Mean	SD	t	P
1	Asynchronous	28	3.85	.97	.38	.77
1	Synchronous	37	3.75	1.09
2	Asynchronous	28	3.67	.86	1.39	.16
2	Synchronous	37	4.02	1.09
3	Asynchronous	28	3.82	.90	.15	.88
3	Synchronous	37	3.78	1.05
4	Asynchronous	28	3.89	.95	.20	.84
4	Synchronous	37	3.94	1.10
5	Asynchronous	28	4.10	.78	2.09	.04
5	Synchronous	37	4.51	.76
6	Asynchronous	28	3.85	.89	2.19	.04
6	Synchronous	37	4.37	1.06
7	Asynchronous	28	3.35	1.16	1.03	.30
7	Synchronous	37	3.67	1.27
8	Asynchronous	28	3.92	.71	.16	.86
8	Synchronous	37	3.89	.99
9	Asynchronous	28	3.10	1.28	.59	.55
9	Synchronous	37	3.29	1.28

As shown in Table 8, after the course, learners in both groups were similar in terms of the items they had already been found to be different before the course. However, the synchronous group was found to be different in other aspects. To be more specific, learners in the synchronous group were more prepared to share things that secretly make them feel anxious or afraid in their stories. The interesting point was that their willingness to reveal that they dislike someone they know in their stories was still higher than that of the asynchronous group after the course.

Findings of this study show that the use of DST has been able to significantly increase students' English learning motivation. These results show that DST has been able to increase English speaking scores and academic motivation in English lessons in students. These findings are consistent with the findings of (Nair and Yunus, 2021).

As an explanation of this finding, it can be argued that academic motivation can be considered as activities that create a sense of progress and active learning, and people who increasingly integrate them increase their motivation to learn. Also, the DST class, due to its high flexibility, does not have a completely fixed framework, so the learner learns according to his desire and interest whenever he wants, and in this regard, the program is adjusted based on the student's interests and possibilities. This increases the motivation to study.

To explain the present research finding, we can refer to Little (2015) who believes that a technology-based class is a teaching method to revolutionize the traditional teaching method in order to get rid of teaching in the class. In the traditional method, the classroom is dedicated to educational content, and in this regard, assignments are considered for students to use outside the classroom, but the DST class is a strategy that uses students’ lectures through recorded videos and transfers it to the classroom (Yoon, 2013). This approach also eliminates classroom content delivery, and instructors can provide classroom activities by teaching students how to access issues and apply information in real life. Implementing DST classroom strategies increases students' understanding of the importance of pre-classroom activities and reinforces them within the classroom (Rotellar and Cain, 2016).

In the DST class, the student has already read the content of the lesson and can prepare the teacher's assigned tasks over and over again. Each student understands the learning content according to their individual differences, and in fact, the control of learning is done by the student. In the classroom, too, they can ask better questions and delve deeper into topics, resulting in more effective and more in-depth interaction.

In sum, the core of all theories in the inverted classroom revolves around students' active involvement with educational content and learning tasks; Therefore, by actively engaging students with learning tasks, they can direct their thoughts and actions in a way that has a positive effect on academic motivation and ultimately on their learning. Personalization of each student's learning is also a booster in DST classes.

Regarding the second hypothesis of this research, the implementation of the DST class approach has had a significant effect and increase on the motivation to learn in English courses for EFL students in general. This may be justified in the light of increase in self-efficacy, learning value, and motivation of the learners in a DST-based environment for English learning (Kotluk and Kocakaya, 2017). Learners' participation also improves the quality of education and the optimal use of classroom time since different educational strategies can be put into practice. The majority of learners prepare their homework before the class and will feel more comfortable doing so, which eventually reduces their anxiety.

Finally, the results of the present study are consistent with the results of Opayemi (2019); they showed the reason for the increase in network use and social media is the expression of emotions and image sharing. Based on the results of this study, it can be stated that students used the Internet and virtual social networks as tools to express their personal opinions on various issues. As a result, in order to work in this space and produce different content in their digital stories, their tendency to self-disclose will necessarily increase (Ribeiro, 2015). Users spend a lot of time on social media to express their feelings, to post their stories, to express their different physical and mental characteristics. Users also need to be more on social media to express their personal views on personal and public affairs.

With regard to the results of this study, it can be pointed out that today, with the growth and expansion of virtual social networks, the tendency of users to express themselves, and self-disclose is related to privacy. Users use social media with different motivations, one of which is self-expression, which leads users to express their feelings through social networks, share their photos, images and videos, and express personality traits. They also give their personal opinions on various matters. The ease and extent of access to social network, how people present themselves on it, as well as different motivations in its various uses, are among the factors that attract users towards its use for sharing their stories.

The students using DST share issues and topics that are in their privacy with people they may not already be intimate with. They express their feelings in different ways and share their personal and perhaps private experiences with others by sending photos, images, audios, etc. During their presence in this space and activity on social network, they share their personal opinions on various issues with others who may not know them (Ribeiro et al., 2014). Therefore, as the findings of the present study show, users use DST in various ways to express themselves, self-disclose and express issues related to their privacy.

The findings of this study can provide important information for those involved in education with regard to its effects on motivation. If the DST class method can have a constructive effect on students by affecting psychological structures, and especially if this effect is greater than the usual (traditional) method of lecturing, teachers can find effective and practical ways to influence academic motivation; therefore, the knowledge gained from this study will help educational institutions to find effective ways to educate students.

Another application of this method is to use it in situations where it is not possible to form classes on a regular basis for any reason, as we can see a practical example of it these days during the outbreak of COVID-19, which has caused the closure of classes in our country. Since, the synchronous (or online) class method has been associated with general success, the results of this study imply promising practical implications for language institutes and schools as well. It is suggested that teachers use audio short stories to reinforce lexical knowledge in listening, speaking, reading and writing skills. It may seem that the DST class method can only be used in active learning in certain subjects, while the reverse method can be applied to individualize teaching and reinforce the learning flow in all lessons. It is best for teachers to stand in front of the camera to produce digital content, record their teaching process, and upload video files to educational sites so that students have good quality resources available.

Therefore, it is suggested that the use of the DST class approach should not be used for all courses and all sessions, and that flexible and attractive items should be prioritized according to the course topics. Also, the method of using e-learning in the classroom is influenced by teachers' knowledge about the subject being taught and the relationship it has with information technology. Some teachers choose IT resources that are relevant to a particular subject. Evidence shows that when teachers apply their knowledge in the subject of the lesson and the student's learning method, the use of information technology has the greatest direct effect on students' progress.

Data Availability Statement

The raw data supporting the conclusion of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.

Author Contributions

The authors have analyzed the collected data and contributed the development of the paper.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Ethics Statement

There are no conflicts of interest in this paper. The participation in the study was voluntary, and informed consent was provided prior to the commencement of the assignment. The anonymity of the participant was maintained throughout the study.

Funding

No funds, grants, or other support were received.

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to the participants who participated in this study.

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The impact of digital storytelling on Iranian EFL learners ‘motivational self, and self-disclosure

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Abstract

Introduction

Literature Review

Digital materials and storytelling

Learner motivation

Self-disclosure, EFL learning and motivation

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion and implications

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References

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