Because stories are so memorable, there’s a real danger that your audience will remember your unrelated stories rather than your key message.

I’ve been fooled into thinking, “This story is only somewhat related to my message, but it’s a juicy story, so I’m going to include it.” Oops.

Thanks for commenting. I agree that the time frame is important. I don’t know what the time frame was – I was working off the abstract of the paper – not the paper itself (website wouldn’t let me buy because I don’t have a US postcode!). I don’t interpret the research as being against stories per se – only against stories which aren’t conceptually relevant to the message. So with Aesop, the message and story are tightly intertwined. If you remember the story – you’ll work out the message. The problem is when we only remember the story – and not the message.

Olivia

The goal of both presenting and educating is not that the learners remember the material immediately after learning it, or even for the test weeks later, but being able to retain it until they need it “someday.”

If Aesop wanted to save time, he could have skipped the fable and just delivered the moral, and the audience would likely be able to regurgitate it shortly after. However, it was the fable which gave the morals their “stickiness” and allowed people to remember them years later.

Thanks for commenting. Yes, it is frustrating when researchers don’t quite pose the research question the way we would have done! I would have liked “no details” as well.

Olivia

I do agree that stories are one of the ways that we make sense of the world. That’s what makes them so powerful.

Olivia

After all, it only makes sense that the conceptually non-relevant material would get in the way of learning, but what if the stories were meaningful to the direct topic? Then we’d know if including stories that had conceptually relevant (arousal theory) material would benefit learning as opposed to a presentation without stories.