Learning mechanisms are triggered to a greater extent for non-STEM-background students in the narrative condition and for STEM-background students in the expository condition¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study (2 entries) · causal r2 · q2
Currency · newest study 2025 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q2 i? For non-STEM students, medium to large effects and strong Bayesian evidence favored narrative instruction for all learning mechanisms, though only germane cognitive load and self-efficacy reached statistical significance. → Samuel Tobler 2025 q2 i? STEM-background students in the expository condition showed higher cognitive engagement, germane cognitive load, situational interest, and self-efficacy than non-STEM students, with only self-efficacy reaching significance. → Samuel Tobler 2025 (2)

Evidence¶

Samuel Tobler 2025¶

Samuel Tobler, Tanmay Sinha, Katja Köhler, Manu Kapur. (2025). Teaching biology with narratives: examining the impact of affective and cognitive variables on undergraduate student learning. Instructional Science. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11251-025-09723-w

q2 · i? · causal · r2

Follow-up simple main effect analyses on learning mechanism ratings by educational background found that non-STEM students in the narrative condition descriptively reported higher ratings for all mechanisms and lower extraneous load, though most comparisons were nonsignificant.

"we found medium to large effects and strong Bayesian evidence for all learning mechanisms favoring the narrative instruction materials for those with a non-STEM background. Yet, only the comparison of effect size for germane cognitive load and self-efficacy reached statistical significance"

Samuel Tobler 2025 (2)¶

Samuel Tobler, Tanmay Sinha, Katja Köhler, Manu Kapur. (2025). Teaching biology with narratives: examining the impact of affective and cognitive variables on undergraduate student learning. Instructional Science. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11251-025-09723-w

q2 · i? · causal · r2

Comparing STEM vs. non-STEM students within the expository condition, effect sizes and Bayesian analyses suggested STEM students were more engaged and experienced greater germane load, interest, and self-efficacy, with only self-efficacy reaching significance; no subgroup effect sizes are printed for these comparisons.

"STEM-background students in the expository condition might have benefited more than non-STEM-background students in terms of cognitive engagement, germane cognitive load, interest, and self-efficacy. However, only the self-efficacy comparison reached statistical significance"

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• Narrative and expository instruction produce no significant differences in recall or understanding of biological concepts
• Narrative instruction produces higher transfer performance than expository instruction in undergraduate biology learning
• Prior biology knowledge tentatively moderates material effectiveness: non-STEM students favor narratives, STEM students favor expository texts for recall and understanding — possibly the same claim (merge candidate)
• Narrative instruction leads to higher germane cognitive load and self-efficacy, and lower extraneous cognitive load, than expository instruction — related
• Background knowledge has a greater impact on comprehension of expository texts than narrative texts for primary children — related
• Text cohesion interacts with background knowledge: low-knowledge readers benefit from high cohesion, high-knowledge readers from low cohesion (reverse cohesion effect) — related