Abstract:

The aim of this research is to determine the effect of digital story applications in the field of science education on academic success. For this purpose, a meta-analysis was carried out with studies examining the effect of digital story use on student achievement in the field of science education. Additionally, it is examined that whether there is a difference on moderator variables –education level, publication type, study field, the person preparing the digital story- in terms of effect values in this study or not. Thirteen studies were included in the meta-analysis and the effect sizes of the studies were calculated. The sampling numbers of the studies in this meta-analysis are 462 participants for the experiment group and 451 participants for the control groups there are totally 913 participants in these selected studies. The studies in meta-analysis are heterogeneous. In order to determine the publication bias, funnel scatter plot, Orwin’s Reliable N analysis, Duval and Tweedie trim and fill method and Egger regression test are examined, and it is determined that there is no publication bias for these studies. The effect value rates are calculated via random effects model and for this calculation, Cohen d coefficient is used. As a result of the meta-analysis, it is seen that the use of digital stories in science education has a high level effect on academic achievement. When effect values and forest plot are evaluated together, it is determined that the academic achievement of the participants in experiment groups is higher than the participants in control groups who having used traditional methods for education. According to the results of moderator analysis, there is no any meaningful effect of some variables such as teaching level, publication type and the person who prepare digital stories on the academic achievement of using digital stories in science education. As a result of the analyses, it is seen that using digital stories for physic, chemistry and biology themes can change the effect size of the academic achievement in science education. As for effect size, it is realized that the highest effect is seen in physic course/theme concepts. As a result, it was determined in the research that digital story applications in science education positively affect academic achievement. In this context, it can be recommended to disseminate digital story applications in teaching processes in order to increase success in science education.