From the times when humans sat around campfires to today when they watch movies on Netflix, stories have been an important means of communication. Stories help learners to learn because they can make abstract concepts come alive. Storytelling in e-learning video attracts learner attention by appealing to their emotions and draws learners, which helps them to remember. Dry content becomes more relatable when they can connect it to real experiences.
When a story has a character learners can identify with, they feel more emotionally connected. A story may reveal a problem learners need to solve and present a satisfying solution. You may be an online educator seeking to make a deeper connection with your learners. Storytelling can be the answer, as it increases the chances that learners will watch your videos to the end and remember more for longer.
The science behind storytelling and memory retention
Telling a story may be an art but there is plenty of cognitive science that supports the use of storytelling in learning.
Stories activate multiple areas of the brain
Research shows that stories activate multiple areas in the brains of learners. The sensory details, actions, and emotionally charged moments all engage different regions. By activating multiple regions, it is easier for learners to encode, store, and retrieve information.
American psychologist Jerome Bruner did research that highlights the power of storytelling for memory. He suggests that stories are significantly more memorable than presenting facts alone.
Stories act as a framework
When you present facts in isolation, they often stay in the short-term memory of learners and are quickly forgotten. Using a story as a framework gives learners ‘mental hooks’ to anchor new knowledge.
Stories exploit pattern recognition
The brain has a natural preference for pattern recognition and stories exploit this. The predictable structure of stories, where there’s an intro, middle, and conclusion, provides a good way to organize information. This structure mirrors how humans store real experiences so it works well for learning.
Types of narratives that work in e-learning content
As an online educator, you need to choose narratives deliberately for educational video engagement. Here are some types of stories that are most effective and that can reduce course abandonment rate.
A case study story
Case studies show how a concept plays out in the real world in the context of the learner. For example, a compliance training video may follow a new employee who has to decide what to do in a tricky workplace scenario.
A problem-solution story
You can give learners a problem they can relate to early on in a story and build on it to create tension before resolving it. Many stories follow this structure so learners can relate to it and want to know what happens next. E-learning webinars often follow this type of structure, where you introduce a problem and show viewers how your solution can solve it.
A hero’s journey story
Many people are familiar with the hero’s journey. A narrator that learners can relate to has to overcome obstacles, which eventually result in a transformation. A story like this can make learners want to achieve personal victories and elearning video personalization can take this to the next level.
Short, immersive scenarios
A scenario in an e-learning video mimics a challenge that learners face in the real world. They have to think critically in order to make the right decisions. For example, leadership training scenarios offer aspiring leaders an opportunity to try and deal with team conflicts and other challenges.
Fictional narratives
Using fictional settings to explain difficult concepts can make them easier to understand. For example, corporate trainers can explain data security by a fictional setting where a castle needs defending.
Live streaming with storytelling
If you want some real-time learner interaction, you can integrate storytelling with live streaming. You can adapt the narrative on the fly based on how the audience participates and the questions learners ask.
Real-world examples of storytelling in training videos
Narrative learning works across industries as long as the stories align with the context of the learner and goals of the educator.
Health and safety training
Virti is a company that helps organizations to create impactful training programs that prepare learners to excel in their roles. It helps them to use AI-driven scenario-based training and roleplay in many different areas, such as health and safety training.
A realistic workplace scenario may be about an employee who has suffered an injury on site. Learners must assess the situation, give assistance, and report the incident in the right way. They receive feedback about their response time, how clearly they communicated, etc. Training like this helps to ensure that they will respond quickly and effectively in real-life situations.
Corporate compliance training
Banks often train employees with storytelling rather than listing regulations. One multinational bank had a mini-series where two employees were presented with ethical dilemmas. They could make a correct or incorrect choice and see the consequences. Feedback showed that the employees not only retained more information but also had more confidence when applying it.
Steve Kerry, the former manager of the Ethics and Compliance Team at Rolls-Royce PLC, introduced a unique learning and communication interventions model. When he was there, his team used real-life cases handled by the company and turned them into stories known as ‘case studies.’ These stories helped to educate employees on topics like bullying and discrimination. The main sections they included in each case study were the background to the story and how the story linked with the company’s values, codes, and policies. They also made clear what key insights employees could take from the story.
Software onboarding
Many tech companies find it helpful to use a narrative featuring a character to introduce new users to their platforms. They often use story-driven micro videos that feature this character facing various challenges that the software can solve. Introducing features in context makes learning more relevant and the learner connection is higher. Story-driven micro lessons can even be delivered via video messaging to keep learners engaged between full training sessions.
Slack has a main character in its onboarding videos called Slackbot. It builds in-app tutorials around this character’s “voice” and personality. Slackbot walks new users through setting up channels, sending messages, and integrating apps as if they’re having a friendly conversation.
Balancing educational goals with engaging narratives
A story has no point in e-learning if it does not support the learning objectives. Too much focus on the story can distract learners from the educational content. Here are some strategies online educators can use to find the right balance.
Start with the end goal
Online educators need to decide what they want learners to know or do by the end of a video. Then they can build a story around achieving that goal.
Keep the pacing tight
Unnecessary scenes or dialogue can slow down progress. Every moment in a video must reinforce a learning point and advance the story.
Let the story and facts flow together
The facts should emerge logically as the story progresses. Awkwardly inserting facts can interrupt the flow of the story. When the story and the facts reinforce one another, the learning experience is more cohesive.
Use relatable characters
Using a relatable character in an e-learning video is one of these video retention strategies that really work. When learners can relate to the characters, they feel empathetic towards them and this connection boosts engagement.
Test the results
It’s important to test how your storytelling videos perform and get insights into how learners interact with them. This enables you to make changes where necessary to improve them.
The Cincopa video hosting platform allows you to host and organize a video series driven by storytelling. You can test the results with analytics to see how learners engage with your narrative content.
Conclusion: Making learning stick through storytelling
E-learning videos need to work harder today in a world with so many distractions and short attention spans. By using storytelling in e-learning videos, you have a proven way to appeal to the intellect and emotions of learners.
Stories structure information in a way that leads to better recall and makes information feel more relevant to real-life challenges. This not only makes learners more knowledgeable but also gives them learning experiences worth remembering. If you want to find out more about how Cincopa can help you to do this, go to the home page and sign up for a free trial.
