Using Rich Narratives to Engage Students in Worthwhile Mathematics: Children’s Literature, Movies and Short Films

Abstract

Using children’s literature to support mathematics instruction has been connected to positive academic outcomes and learning dispositions; however, less is known about the use of audiovisual based narrative mediums to support student mathematical learning experiences. The current exploratory, qualitative study involved teaching three lessons based on challenging, problem solving tasks to two classes of Australian Year (Grade) 5 students (10 and 11 year olds). These tasks were developed from various narratives, each portrayed through a different medium (movie clip, short film, picture story book). Post lesson interviews were undertaken with 24 students inviting them to compare and contrast this lesson sequence with their usual mathematics instruction. Drawing on a self-determination theory lens, our analysis revealed that these lessons were experienced by students as both highly enjoyable and mathematically challenging. More specifically, it was found that presenting mathematics tasks based on rich and familiar contexts and providing meaningful choices about how to approach their mathematical work supported student autonomy. In addition, there was evidence that the narrative presentation supported student understanding of the mathematics through making the tasks clearer and more accessible, whilst the audiovisual mediums (movie clip, short film) in particular provided a dynamic representation of key mathematical ideas (e.g., transformation and scale). Students indicated an eclectic range of preferences in terms of their preferred narrative mediums for exploring mathematical ideas. Our findings support the conclusion that educators and researchers focused on the benefits of teaching mathematics through picture story books consider extending their definition of narrative to encompass other mediums, such as movie clips and short films.

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Article
Using Rich Narratives to Engage Students in Worthwhile
Mathematics: Children’s Literature, Movies and Short Films
James Russo 1, * , Toby Russo 2and Anne Roche 1


Citation: Russo, J.; Russo, T.; Roche,
A. Using Rich Narratives to Engage
Students in Worthwhile Mathematics:
Children’s Literature, Movies and
Short Films. Educ. Sci. 2021,11, 588.
https://doi.org/10.3390/
educsci11100588
Academic Editors: Eila Jeronen and
Liudmila Liutsko
Received: 20 August 2021
Accepted: 23 September 2021
Published: 27 September 2021
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral
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iations.
Copyright: © 2021 by the authors.
Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
This article is an open access article
distributed under the terms and
conditions of the Creative Commons
Attribution (CC BY) license (https://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/
4.0/).
1Faculty of Education, Monash University, Clayton, VIC 3800, Australia; anne.roche@monash.edu
2Spensley Street Primary School, Clifton Hill, VIC 3068, Australia; Toby.Russo@education.vic.gov.au
*Correspondence: james.russo@monash.edu
Abstract:
Using children’s literature to support mathematics instruction has been connected to
positive academic outcomes and learning dispositions; however, less is known about the use of
audiovisual based narrative mediums to support student mathematical learning experiences. The
current exploratory, qualitative study involved teaching three lessons based on challenging, problem
solving tasks to two classes of Australian Year (Grade) 5 students (10 and 11 year olds). These tasks
were developed from various narratives, each portrayed through a different medium (movie clip,
short film, picture story book). Post lesson interviews were undertaken with 24 students inviting them
to compare and contrast this lesson sequence with their usual mathematics instruction. Drawing on a
self-determination theory lens, our analysis revealed that these lessons were experienced by students
as both highly enjoyable and mathematically challenging. More specifically, it was found that
presenting mathematics tasks based on rich and familiar contexts and providing meaningful choices
about how to approach their mathematical work supported student autonomy. In addition, there
was evidence that the narrative presentation supported student understanding of the mathematics
through making the tasks clearer and more accessible, whilst the audiovisual mediums (movie
clip, short film) in particular provided a dynamic representation of key mathematical ideas (e.g.,
transformation and scale). Students indicated an eclectic range of preferences in terms of their
preferred narrative mediums for exploring mathematical ideas. Our findings support the conclusion
that educators and researchers focused on the benefits of teaching mathematics through picture story
books consider extending their definition of narrative to encompass other mediums, such as movie
clips and short films.
Keywords:
mathematics education; narratives; self-determination theory; problem solving; challenging
tasks; children’s literature; audiovisual media; elementary education
1. Introduction
For many years researchers and policy makers have endeavored to describe the
kinds of pedagogical practices that contribute to improved student outcomes in mathemat-
ics
[1–3]
. Common to these lists of practices is the importance of mathematical tasks and the
features of tasks considered to promote learning. Indeed, the quality of tasks that students
engage with in the classroom has been acknowledged as key to “how students come to
view, develop, use and make sense of mathematics” [
1
] (p. 13). Following a review of the
values and practices considered to be the most important and effective by the mathematics
education community, Swan [
3
] outlined eleven principles for teaching mathematics based
in research. One focused solely on tasks. It stated, “Teaching is more effective when it uses
rich, collaborative tasks which promote mathematics learning, are accessible, extendable,
encourage decision making, promote discussion, encourage creativity, encourage ‘what
if’ and ‘what if not’ questions” (p. 4). NCTM [
2
] recommended that students should
be exposed to worthwhile and meaningful mathematical tasks, that promote problem
solving and reasoning, and develop students’ dispositions for learning mathematics. They
Educ. Sci. 2021,11, 588. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci11100588 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/education

Educ. Sci. 2021,11, 588 2 of 19
suggested that such tasks often have more than one solution strategy, can be represented in
multiple ways and demand students justify and communicate their understandings.
Some studies have investigated the use of challenging tasks or tasks with a high
cognitive demand [
4
–
6
]. They have been shown to promote productive struggle, which is
important for learning mathematics with understanding [
7
]. Sullivan and Mornane [
5
] in-
vestigated the use of challenging tasks that encourage persistence. They believed that it was
possible for everyone to learn mathematics but that it takes concentration and effort over a
sustained period of time. The results of their study indicated that the students learned the
content and that some students’ revealed a preference for these types of tasks. Other studies
have similarly reported that primary students can embrace challenging tasks, thrive on
the struggle, and that many students reported that working on these tasks was interesting
and enjoyable [
6
,
8
,
9
]. We note that such studies involving challenging tasks generally
incorporated a problem solving approach. Such an approach to teaching mathematics:
[U]ses interesting and well-selected problems to launch mathematical lessons and engage
students. In this way, new ideas, techniques, and mathematical relationships emerge and
become the focus of discussion. Good problems can inspire important mathematical ideas,
nurture persistence, and reinforce the need to understand and use various strategies,
mathematical properties, and relationships [2] (p. 182).
Moreover, some studies have specifically focused on the effect of a problem solving
approach for teaching mathematics [
10
,
11
]. These studies reported that students had
positive attitudes about learning mathematics through problem solving even when the
tasks were challenging and that this approach was shown to support their mathematical
learning. These findings resonated with Cai [
12
] who summarized earlier research on
teaching mathematics through problem solving. He reported that “students who had
experienced problem-based instruction showed significantly more growth in mathematical
reasoning, communication, making connections, and problem solving than did students
receiving traditional instruction” (p. 251).
One type of problem solving task are those that are contextualized [
13
]. Relevant to
the current study is the use of tasks that are embedded in a context. Mathematical problems
with a context have been given various names such as contextualized tasks [
13
], real-life
problems [14] and modelling activities [15] to name a few. These have been differentiated
from word problems which are contextualized “in a more contrived manner” [15] (p. 22).
Borasi [
14
] defined the context as “the situation in which the problem is embedded”
(p. 129). Clarke and Roche [
13
] described the mathematical focus as the starting point
for a contextualized task and the context as exemplifying this. Meyer and colleagues [
16
]
suggested that the context in mathematics curricula have five roles, namely to: 1. Motivate
students; 2. Offer opportunities to apply mathematics; 3. Serve as a source of new mathe-
matics; 4. Suggest a possible solution strategy; and 5. Provide an anchor for mathematics
understanding. In terms of motivating students, Clarke and Roche [
13
] reported on the
preferences of 11–15-year-old students for three task types: contextualized tasks, open
ended tasks, and tasks with purposeful representations. Overall, there was a range of
preferences for which they enjoyed the most, felt were the easiest and from which they
learned the most.
The focus of the current research is on the use of challenging tasks that begin with
a narrative [
17
] to support students in upper primary school (Year 5; 10 and 11 year
olds) to explore proportional reasoning. Proportional reasoning refers to the capacity to
compare situations in relative (multiplicative) rather than absolute (additive) terms [
18
].
It has been described as the capstone of primary mathematics and the cornerstone of
secondary mathematics [
19
]. Tasks involving proportional reasoning were chosen for
this study because, despite its importance and evidence that students often struggle in
this domain [
20
], lessons focused on this topic are often procedural in nature and “do
not engage students in analyzing, comparing, evaluating arguments, or similar thinking
practices” (p. 258) [
21
]. By contrast, teaching proportional reasoning through challenging,

Educ. Sci. 2021,11, 588 3 of 19
problem solving tasks, such as those developed for the current study, is more likely to
engage students’ critical faculties.
The narratives were initiated from a movie clip, a short film, and a picture story
book and provided the context for the associated mathematical task. Given the impor-
tance of mathematical tasks and problem solving for supporting student mathematical
learning and associated dispositions, we aimed to investigate whether tasks that emerged
authentically from a familiar narrative would produce a more positive student learning
experience, compared with a typical mathematics lesson. The research questions driving
the study were:
1.
How does learning mathematics through challenging tasks embedded in narrative
contexts shape the student learning experience, when compared with a typical mathe-
matics lesson?
2.
When learning mathematics through narrative contexts, to what extent do students
demonstrate a preference for learning mathematics through a particular medium
(movie clip, short film, or picture story book)?
In the next section we define narratives and outline the background literature associ-
ated with the use and benefits of picture story books and audiovisual media in mathematics
lessons.
1.1. Narratives
Bruner [
22
] argued that narratives “operate as an instrument of the mind in the con-
struction of reality” (p. 6). Scholes [
23
] defined narrative as “the symbolic presentation
of a sequence of events connected by subject matter and related by time. Without tem-
poral relation we have only a list” (p. 205). He argued that a story is a special kind of
narrative “with a certain very specific syntactic shape (beginning-middle-end or situation-
transformation-situation) and with a subject matter which allows for or encourages the
projection of human values upon the material” (p. 206). The use of narratives has the
potential to make the mathematics more realistic and relatable. Chao and colleagues [
24
]
suggested “a narrative structure might facilitate students’ identification with a figure, if
the narrative is one to which students can relate” (p. 270).
Further, the term narrative has been used to describe a way of thinking in mathematics.
Sinclair and colleagues [
25
] differentiated between two modes of thinking in mathemat-
ics (narrative and paradigmatic) and suggested they have complementary roles in the
construction and organization of knowledge:
The paradigmatic is concerned with what is, given the constraints of the system in
question, and with identifying and proving generalities that characterize objects and
relations in the system, the narrative focuses on particular activities of these objects as
they are played out in time, on what might be behind the events in question and on how
they resemble or remind us of other things we know about (p. 443).
In a broader educational context, Colucci-Gray et al. [
26
] highlighted the importance
of arts being at the heart of an integrated education, which encompasses the notion of
narrative or storytelling. They described the origins of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engi-
neering, Arts and Mathematics) as a means of developing innovation, creativity, motivation,
and inclusion. Storytelling was one pedagogical activity for building connections between
subjects and enhancing motivation and inclusion.
We argue that beginning a mathematics lesson with a narrative and subsequently
investigating a mathematical problem that emerges authentically from the story provides
students with an opportunity to move beyond the relations in the mathematics system. It is
an invitation to adopt a mathematical lens to consider the how and why behind the events
in the story, and ultimately supports students to build a deeper conceptual understanding
of the mathematical content being explored. Furthermore, we prioritize the text over the
curriculum and argue that the narrative is chosen first (a story book or short media clip)
and a rich problem solving task is developed that connects to some key component of

Educ. Sci. 2021,11, 588 4 of 19
the narrative. The curriculum links arise retrospectively. We call this the narrative-first
approach [
17
]. It aligns with Trakulphadetkrai and colleagues’ [
27
] second category of
mathematical stories, which refers to narratives which were “not originally created with an
intention for them to become a mathematical story but containing a storyline that lends
itself naturally for a mathematical investigation” (p. 202). The benefits of using narratives
(children’s literature and audiovisual media) in mathematics lessons are now discussed.
1.2. Using Children’s Literature in Mathematics Instruction
The use of children’s literature or picture story books in mathematics instruction is
a commonly promoted practice with a rich history over decades [
28
]. A recent study by
Livy and colleagues [
29
] revealed that three-quarters of Australian in-service primary
school teachers who responded to their questionnaire used children’s literature to support
mathematics instruction at least occasionally, with around one-third of study teachers doing
so more frequently (at least once per month). Numerous books describe the ways in which
stories can be used as a springboard or hook for exploring mathematical ideas [
30
,
31
].
Additionally, there is a plethora of articles that describe experiences in the classroom
where mathematics is taught beginning with a story considered high-quality literature and
engaging for the relevant grade level [32–35].
Although many of these articles are not based on empirical research, they nevertheless
espouse the potential benefits of teaching mathematics through children’s literature. They
often explain that using story books to create rich learning experiences can promote
enjoyment in learning, engage and motivate students to learn mathematics, and ultimately
foster positive mathematical dispositions. Furthermore, the contexts of the stories can
connect the mathematics to students’ lives and interests, therefore making the mathematics
meaningful and relevant. For example, Usnick and McCarthy [
36
] argued that adolescents
could be motivated to learn mathematics through literature that is a springboard for
explorations that integrate the curriculum. Furner [
37
] also described potential benefits
for older students, concluding that using literature in the teaching of mathematics had the
potential for increasing students’ interest (and reducing anxiety) in STEM related subjects.
As well as benefits in the affective domain, others have described the potential benefits
for students academically. Edelman and colleagues [
38
] reported on a systematic review of
23 studies on children’s literature and mathematics teaching and learning during a twenty-
five-year period (1991–2016). Participants included children between the ages of 18 months
and 14 years, parents of children of that age range or teachers. Initially the review’s search
for relevant articles determined that there were many publications on this topic; however,
far fewer were based on empirical research. Overall findings from those reporting on
empirical research indicated that the use of children’s literature for teaching mathematics
had a positive impact on student achievement outcomes and mathematical discourse.
The findings also concluded that students’ engagement and interest in mathematics may
increase with the use of children’s literature; however, motivation and engagement were
measured the least amongst the studies considered.
Much of the empirical research exploring the benefits of using children’s literature has
typically focused on preschool or early primary children (e.g., [
39
–
43
]). However, Capraro
and Capraro [
44
] found that the use of children’s literature to teach geometry in a sixth-
grade classroom demonstrated that the students in the experimental group outperformed
the non-story group on geometry ability when controlling for pretest performance. The
current study contributes empirically towards understanding upper primary students’
beliefs about the ways in which using a story to initiate a mathematics task motivates them
to engage in a complex mathematics topic.
1.3. Using Audiovisual Media in Mathematics Instruction
Despite the plethora of articles on children’s literature, much is less is known about
the impact of using a short movie or film clip to initiate a mathematics lesson. However,
we would suggest that many of the benefits reported for the use of children’s literature

Educ. Sci. 2021,11, 588 5 of 19
would be similar for audiovisual media. Indeed, Martinovic and colleagues [
45
] argued
that because of its pervasiveness in recent decades the use of digital media can have a
profound impact on young people’s mathematics learning. They concluded that:
active participation in virtual mathematical opportunities may help not only to preserve
students’ natural motivation and the interest they have in the world around them, but
also turn such interest into meaningful mathematics learning, full of opportunities for
enrichment and collaboration, and thus supporting the emergence of a new learning
culture (p. 233).
However, the authors also indicated that further research is required to understand
the cognitive, affective, and social outcomes of its use.
Prior research has examined the use of video on students’ interest or potential interest
in mathematics content. Pierce and colleagues [
46
] advocated for movies that “offer an
excellent way of bringing real world situations into the mathematics classroom” (p. 26).
They outlined a project (Real world problems and information technology enhancing
mathematics—RITEMATHS) in which digital images and movies are created by students or
for students by the teachers to teach secondary mathematics content. The authors outlined
some of the educational benefits. These were, “to bring real world problems alive in the
classroom, to personalize mathematics, thereby increasing engagement of students, to
integrate mathematics with many other subjects, and to make good use of information
technology and students’ interest in it” (p. 26). These benefits were not dissimilar to those
described for the use of children’s literature. Chao and colleagues [
24
] examined the impact
of three digital resources (computer games, interactive lessons, and on-line videos) on fifth
to eighth grade students’ motivation and self-efficacy for learning mathematics. The online
video was a commercially produced 55-min video about fractals with appealing animations
and interviews with mathematicians. There were no follow up activities focusing on
fractals. The findings revealed that around half of the group found the video interesting or
enjoyable, and the authors concluded that the content (fractals) may have been the factor
precluding some from enjoying the video.
It is notable that neither Pierce and colleagues’ [
46
] nor Chao and colleagues’ [
24
]
studies examined the ways in which the students engaged with the mathematics following
the viewing of the videos. Moreover, these studies described a substantially different
approach for using audiovisual media compared with the current study, which used a
narrative-based video as a hook into a mathematical investigation. Consequently, the
current study contributes to the literature gap about the use of audiovisual media to
provoke rich investigations and interest in mathematics.
1.4. Engagement and Interest
The construct of student engagement is multidimensional and complex [
47
]. It is
necessary for learning, develops over time and can be facilitated by experiences in the
classroom environment, as well as within the students themselves [
48
,
49
]. Furthermore, stu-
dents’ interest and engagement with classroom activities are positively related to academic
achievement [
50
–
52
] and increased interest can lead to increased motivation to learn [
53
].
Ainley [
54
] identified the importance of the classroom task for developing students’ interest
and engagement. She reported that “students’ initial reaction to the task sets a direction
for their level of engagement” (p. 293). However, the relationship between task, interest
and engagement is complex. Renninger [
52
] explained that “interest does not reside solely
in the tasks or in the person but in the possibilities for activity that are perceived by the
individual” (p. 396). For this reason, it is important to investigate students’ perceptions of
their experience when working on a mathematical task. Indeed, Middleton [
55
] argued
that because much of students’ motivation in mathematics is due to the nature of tasks and
other classroom features, “careful attention to the redesign of these factors may afford the
development of situational interest in students—thus engendering more excitement, on
task behaviors, and subsequent mathematical learning” (p. 78). However, little is known
about why tasks might produce enjoyment or interest in some students more than others.

Educ. Sci. 2021,11, 588 6 of 19
To this end, Schukajlow and Krug [
56
] investigated students’ experiences of autonomy,
competence, and interest when engaged with mathematics problems that were challeng-
ing, based on real world situations, and had multiple solutions and multiple pathways
to solutions. They reported that students’ prior interest influenced their experiences of
autonomy and competence, and their interest increased the more they felt autonomous and
competent. Therefore, experiences that facilitated feelings of autonomy and competence
contributed to an increase in interest and overall enjoyment. As will be discussed, auton-
omy, competence and relatedness are three basic psychological needs [
57
] that contribute
to a students’ interest and motivation to learn.
1.5. Theoretical Framework: Self-Determination Theory
Self-determination theory is put forward as a framework for understanding why we
anticipate students will enjoy learning mathematics through exploring problem solving
tasks grounded in rich, familiar narratives. Exponents of self-determination theory con-
tend that there are three primary psychological needs that motivate people’s behavior:
autonomy, competence and relatedness. It is suggested that meeting these needs is crit-
ical for psychological functioning and wellbeing [
58
]. Autonomy describes “the need to
self-regulate one’s experiences and actions”, and is “associated with feeling volitional, con-
gruent and integrated” [
59
] (p. 10). Competence refers to “our basic need to feel effectance
and mastery”, particularly within contexts that are valued by the individual [
59
] (p. 11).
Finally, relatedness involves a general sense of “feeling socially connected” (p. 11). The
relevance of each of these three psychological needs in an educational context, and how
they are anticipated to be supported by a narrative-driven, problem solving approach to
teaching mathematics, is outlined below.
1.5.1. Autonomy
Much has been written about self-determination theory in the context of understand-
ing how students interact with their learning environment [
60
]. Importantly, through the
lens of self-determination theory, high quality engagement and a sense of autonomy need
not be contingent on an individual being intrinsically motivated to undertake a particular
task or activity; but rather can be experienced through internalizing one’s extrinsic motiva-
tions. In particular, identified regulation involves perceiving a particular activity as valued
or important, and integrated regulation involves perceiving a particular activity as con-
nected to one’s authentic self [
60
,
61
]. In both these instances, even though the individual is
externally motivated in the sense that they are seeking an outcome that can be separated
from engaging in the activity itself [
62
], they experience high quality engagement, positive
emotions and relative autonomy [
60
]. The implication is that autonomy can be cultivated
in learning environments through both providing students with choice and designing
learning activities that are perceived by students as purposeful and that resonate with who
they are as young people.
In the context of the current study, it is postulated that learning mathematics through
tasks that emerge authentically from rich narratives will lead to students experiencing
autonomy. First, autonomy will be supported by working on problem solving tasks
that have multiple possible solutions and/or can be feasibly solved in multiple possible
ways [8,63]. Second, the rich contexts in which the tasks are embedded, that both connect
to and validate children’s imaginative worlds, will lead to the mathematics being perceived
as relatively purposeful and valued.
1.5.2. Competence
Competence relates to the psychological need to be effective when interacting with a
given context, in order to be in a position to obtain valued outcomes [
64
,
65
]. It is connected
with opportunities to demonstrate that one can successfully navigate the demands of one’s
learning environment, and the feelings of efficacy resulting from this successful naviga-
tion [
57
]. Within a learning context in which student autonomy is supported through the

Educ. Sci. 2021,11, 588 7 of 19
affordance of choices that are relevant to a student’s world, a student’s need for compe-
tence is supported through ensuring that these choices represent “sufficiently complex
options” [60] (p. 259).
Within our study, we contend that considering mathematical tasks that are embedded
within rich narratives will promote student competence through improving their grasp
of the mathematical ideas in focus. We suggest that this will occur through at least two
means that have been previously shown to be connected to mathematical competence
and understanding:
•
Encouraging visualization [
2
] for example, inviting students to hold in mind Max’s
epic journey which paradoxically takes place before his soup even has a chance to cool
down (Where The Wild Things Are, see Table 1)
•
Dynamically representing important mathematical ideas [
66
], such as transformation
and scale factor; for example, when watching Hector shrink the toilet to a fraction of
its original size (Despicable Me; see Table 1)
More generally, it has been previously argued that learning mathematics through
problem solving tasks that are augmented through enabling and extending prompts,
such as the tasks in the current study, can promote student feelings of competence and
mastery [
67
]. Enabling and extending prompts are tools to support differentiated learning
experiences to allow all students to engage in optimally challenging problem solving [
11
].
According to Sullivan and colleagues [
11
,
68
,
69
], enabling prompts are designed to make
the main task more accessible through strategies such as removing a step in the problem,
changing the representation, simplifying the numbers, or connecting the problem to prior
learning. Extending prompts expose students to an additional task that is more challenging,
but requires students to use similar representations, reasoning and conceptualizations to
the main task.
Table 1. Narrative-based challenging mathematical tasks included in the study.
Narrative (Medium) Mathematical Task
Despicable Me (movie clip) How many times smaller is the tiny toilet than the regular toilet?
Coin Operated (short film)
Imagine one 5c coin propels his rocket 50 cm. Space is 100 km away. How
many 5c coins does the boy need in order to become a real astronaut who has
been to outer space?
Where the Wild Things Are (picture story book) How much more quickly does time pass in the Land of the Wild Things
compared with the real world?
We’re Going on a Bear Hunt (picture story book)
On the way back, the family went a lot quicker to avoid being eaten by the
bear, and they got back to their house in exactly an hour. If they travelled at
least twice as quickly through each obstacle on the way back, can you work out
how long it might have taken them to travel back through the grass, river, mud,
forest, snowstorm and cave? Can you find more than one possible set
of answers?
1.5.3. Relatedness
Relatedness reflects the need to connect with, and be accepted by, significant others.
More generally, it involves feeling a sense of belonging to a social group [
57
]. Relatedness
in a learning environment is supported by positive, mutually validating relationships
with both one’s peers and teachers. To further support relatedness, student choices in
relation to a particular learning environment “must be congruent with the students’ social
relationships and culture” [60] (p. 259).
The importance of meeting students’ need for relatedness when learning mathematics
should not be understated. For instance, there is strong evidence that students value
working collaboratively on mathematical tasks [
8
,
70
,
71
]. Moreover, when students require
support with a mathematical task and both teachers and peers are available, students are
three times more likely to seek help from peers, rather than their teacher [
72
]. In the context

Educ. Sci. 2021,11, 588 8 of 19
of our study, we would argue that the structure of these narrative-driven mathematics
lessons would support students in meeting their need for relatedness in at least three ways:
•
Through the shared social experience of listening to, and/or viewing, a culturally
relevant narrative to launch a mathematics lesson;
•
Through opportunities to work collaboratively with other students, after 10 minutes
of exploring the task independently;
•
Through participating in a post-task mathematical discussion structured around their
peers’ work on the task.
2. Materials and Methods
The current study was intended to be both exploratory and qualitative in nature, and
aimed to examine the student experience of learning mathematics through rich problem
solving tasks launched through narratives in the form of picture story books, short films
and movie clips. Note that the focus of the current paper is on the learning experience from
the student perspective. As such, how the tasks elicited the targeted mathematical thinking
from a teacher perspective, in particular, how they supported students to reason propor-
tionally, is beyond the scope of the current paper; however, this is discussed elsewhere
(e.g., see [63]).
2.1. Participants
Participants in the current study were drawn from the 47 students from two Year
(Grade) 5 classes attending a primary school located in the inner-north of Melbourne,
Australia. In Melbourne, students typically turn 11 years old in Year 5. The school the
students attended was comparatively socio-economically advantaged in terms of the parent
communities’ occupation and education levels. The school’s Index of Community Socio-
Educational Advantage (ICSEA) was 1154, with 69% of student families distributed in the
top quartile of the Australian population on this measure.
Twenty-four of these 47 students who had returned parental consent and student
ascent forms, and were available to participate in follow-up interviews on the day in which
the researchers (first two authors) were in the school conducting the interviews, comprised
the study participants. Twenty participants were present for all three lessons, two were
present for two of the lessons, whilst two were only present for a single lesson.
2.2. Procedure
During Term 3 of 2019, the researchers (first two authors) taught three mathematics
lessons to each of the two classes of Year 5 students. Each class participated in one lesson
launched from a picture story book (either Where the Wild Things Are; [
73
] or We’re Going
on a Bear Hunt; [
74
]) one lesson launched from a two-minute clip from a movie (Despicable
Me; [
75
]) and one lesson launched from a Pixar short film (Coin Operated; [
76
]). These
specific narratives were chosen both because they were likely to be familiar to students and
because each provided a context for a meaningful proportional reasoning problem solving
task. Each of these lessons lasted approximately 50 to 60 min and followed the launch–
explore–discuss/summarize structure frequently utilized when learning mathematics
through problem solving [
68
,
77
,
78
]. For the Despicable Me lesson, we cycled through these
three phases on two occasions. An adaptation to this lesson structure is noted elsewhere
in the literature (e.g., see [
79
] and their instructional model incorporating (re)launch,
re(explore), (re)summarize/review). Note that the core tasks used in each of the lessons
are briefly summarized in Table 1, whilst the full tasks have been published elsewhere
(Where the Wild Things Are, [
80
]; We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, [
81
]; Despicable Me and
Coin Operated, [63]).
Specifically, we launched each lesson by presenting the narrative to students (i.e.,
reading the picture story book, displaying the movie clip or screening the short film). We
then invited students to summarize the key components of the story, put forward several
provocative questions to further immerse students in the narrative world, and finally

Educ. Sci. 2021,11, 588 9 of 19
presented a mathematical task to students that we believed emerged authentically from
the story. Elsewhere we have described this approach to launching a mathematics task as a
narrative-first approach [
17
]. During the explore phase of the lesson, students spent the first
five minutes working independently on the task. After this time, students who required
further support accessed the enabling prompt. Approximately ten minutes into the explore
phase, students were invited to collaborate with peers, which most students chose to do.
Finally, the discuss/summarize phase of the lesson involved several specifically chosen
students presenting their progress on the task. Our role as teachers was to highlight
connections between different approaches, as well as connecting these approaches to the
underlying mathematical focus.
On the day after the third lesson was completed, individual semi-structured inter-
views were undertaken with the 24 participants by the researchers (first two authors). All
interviews were between four and eight minutes in duration (median time = five minutes).
The interviews began with the researchers briefly recapping the three lessons and gesturing
towards print outs of the three problems, with prompting visual images. Participants
were reminded that one lesson was based on a clip from a movie (Despicable Me), one
was based on a short film (Coin Operated), and one on a children’s book (Where the Wild
Things Are or We’re Going on a Bear Hunt). Participants were asked how these lessons
compared to their regular mathematics instruction, and the researchers probed around
the ideas of enjoyment, learning and challenge. Participants were also asked which lesson
they preferred and why, and what would be their preferred narrative medium for learning
mathematics in the future (movie clips, short films, picture story books) and the reason(s)
for this.
2.3. Analysis
Data were analyzed thematically [
82
]. Transcripts were read, reread and annotated,
with salient characteristics being highlighted. Key information from each of the annotated
transcripts was then summarized into a paragraph (approx. 100–150 words), distilling the
responses of each of the interviewees into a consistently structured block of text. These
summaries included: a note about the number of lessons students participated in; their
overall reactions to the lesson; the reasons provided for these reactions; an indication of
their favorite lesson; and their preferred mode of narrative learning. For example:
Maya participated in all lessons (including We’re Going on a Bear Hunt). Overall,
Maya found working on these contextualized problems more interesting, challenging
and enjoyable than what she described as her usual mathematics lessons, which she
indicated had a heavy emphasis on practice. She valued both the opportunities to make
choices and the connection to real life. Her favorite lesson was the Coin Operated task,
because she found the visual images compelling, had a clear sense of what the problem was
getting at and worked on the problem independently. Interestingly, despite indicating
she learnt better visually and despite nominating Coin Operated as her favorite lesson,
she indicated a preference for picture story books as her preferred narrative medium for
future mathematics lessons.
These summaries were then read and reread, and several key themes were extracted.
The primary interview transcripts were then revisited with these themes in mind, with
each transcript being systematically coded to respective key themes when relevant. As part
of this process, specific text that connected to the relevant themes was highlighted, with
the most clearly articulated and relevant quotes that illustrated a given theme set-aside for
inclusion in our analysis. Finally, consideration was given to whether each theme could be
connected back to the three psychological needs postulated in self-determination theory:
autonomy, competence and relatedness; the theoretical framework underpinning the study.
As none of the three themes that emerged initially could be connected directly to the need
for relatedness, the interview transcripts were re-examined to see if any of the participant
comments resonated with this particular psychological need, and whether an additional
associated theme could be extracted from the data.

Educ. Sci. 2021,11, 588 10 of 19
In addition to this thematic analysis, participants were asked directly which of the
narrative mediums they preferred when learning mathematics. These preferences are
presented, with the various explanations students provided for these preferences noted.
3. Results
The lessons were almost universally acknowledged as challenging, with 23 out of the
24 students stating that the lessons were notably more challenging than mathematics as
usual. Likewise, there was consensus amongst the students interviewed that the lessons
were enjoyable compared with mathematics as usual. Although there was evidence that
this enjoyment stemmed in part from the novelty of the learning experience, the argument
presented in our theoretical framework is that the lessons would be perceived as enjoyable
because they would meet students’ three psychological needs for autonomy, competence
and relatedness. Four key themes emerged from our final analysis, each of which can be
connected to one of these three psychological needs.
3.1. Autonomy: Rich and Familiar Contexts Made the Mathematics More Purposeful (n = 20)
Most students (83%) emphasized during the interview that presenting a mathematical
task through a narrative context made learning the mathematics seem more purposeful and
relevant. We conceptualized this as students having their need for autonomy met as they
worked on these tasks. The claim is that the familiar narratives allowed students to connect
the mathematics to contexts that were personally meaningful to them, such as a well-loved
picture story book or a popular movie. These fictional worlds are alive for students, as they
feel psychologically close to these rich stories. In the language of self-determination theory,
these lessons promoted students’ sense of autonomy and engagement in the learning
through supporting integrated regulation.
Several students suggested their usual mathematics classes lacked context, and
therefore purpose, for their learning, in contrast to their experience of these narrative-
based lessons:
I really like them because it sort of gives it a backbone. It gives it something to go off
. . .
It kind of like gives it purpose. Because I mean, I think I’m one of those people who has
to see the point to something. If it is just math, then it is not really that exciting, but if
it’s, say, a story behind it, it actually makes it more fun because you’re actually doing
something to do with the story as well. (Hermin)
It kind of interests’ people a bit more, because it will spark something in their minds
. . .
Because like it’s a film, it gets them more interested in the topic. Normally you get bored
because you don’t even know why you’re doing it. Just to solve the answers. But, say with
the rocket, this is to figure out how much money he would need to go that far. (Reece)
These lessons were challenging and based on something unlike Mr X’s classes which just
were, ah, either practicing on Essential Assessments or things
. . .
I think it was really
good because yesterday when we read, We’re Going on a Bear Hunt it was really fun to
read and the questions were related to the topic . . . It made it more interesting. (Maya)
In our regular math lessons, we get worksheets
. . .
(Having a story at the start of the
lesson) was useful because it kind of gave you, like, a reason to do it, instead of just
working out the math. (Nancy)
Several students noted that their personal familiarity and prior knowledge of these
stories made the mathematics lesson more relatable:
I liked it because yeah, I was familiar with it
. . .
it just made it a bit more relatable
because I’d seen the movies and I knew what they were talking about. (Rachel)
I like it more. Because I know a lot of these things a bit more than what we normally
would do
. . .
It changed it because I knew what it was, not just starting from scratch
doing something. I’ve read the Wild Things quite a lot and I’ve watched Despicable Me,
and I’ve seen a lot of Pixar short films. (Charlie)

Educ. Sci. 2021,11, 588 11 of 19
I think it’s good because, like, it was things you already knew about. And, like, you had
past knowledge of it, well some people would have. That past knowledge made it fun.
And usually math lessons are just like a piece of paper, here’s multiplication, do stuff. It’s
not based off this. (Honey)
Building on this idea, there is a sense in which by working on a mathematical task that
is embedded in the narrative students actually deepen their engagement with the narrative,
as articulated by Shaun:
If we’re doing like a worksheet, it would be something we don’t really know about
. . .
but this was like we had all read the book and it kind of made sense to look into it. And it
was fun to like, look at something that we had seen before and then look into it deeper and
have a greater understanding about it.
3.2. Autonomy: Open Tasks Support Student Choice (n = 9)
Our next theme confirms that many students (38%) valued working on tasks where
they could make choices about how they approached the mathematical work. In addi-
tion, students appreciated that some of the tasks had multiple viable answers, with the
acceptability of a given answer depending on the quality of student reasoning. This again
connects to supporting students to meet the psychological need for autonomy.
I enjoyed these much more because we could do things our way instead of getting, like,
something, like a math sheet and having to do it this one way. (Ashleigh)
And there were so many ways you could do it. And it was hard as well. So, like, it was
hard, but that’s what made it fun. And like there were so many ways, like ‘How do I do
this? Do I add something on here or do I split this up?’. (Honey)
In all of them there was like some different ways you could work it out. Especially in this
one, the Wild Things one, there was a lot of estimating which I kind of like because you
can choose your own way . . . . (Nancy)
As noted by Jane, the openness of the problems enabled students to think more
creatively, and break away from viewing mathematics as a set of routine tasks to complete:
There’s lots of creativity involved. There’s lots of options to go through
. . .
In usual math
there would be just sums in a row, they’re all like generic. But this kind of adds a splash
of color.
3.3. Competence: The Narrative Presentation Supported Student Understanding (n = 16)
The next theme to be discussed is the notion that connecting the mathematical task to
the narrative supported student understanding of the mathematical idea being explored.
In terms of our self-determination theory lens, we connected this to the notion that these
lessons met students’ need for competence. Most students (67%) indicated that the narrative
structure supported their understanding in some capacity.
Some students noted that these lessons, although challenging, were in fact easier to
follow than a regular mathematics class because of this narrative structure. It seems that
the familiarity and sense of purpose (supporting autonomy) supported students to persist
with more challenging mathematical work (supporting competence):
Sometimes [in a regular math lesson] you could do ‘it takes this long to travel somewhere
in a boat’ but not with a story background like Where the Wild Things Are.
. . .
I could
relate to the things, and I knew what was going on in them. (Leroy)
I really like them. They were a lot easier to follow
. . .
Um, because we were doing it
originally on something. In normal lessons we are just figuring out how to do one thing
and turn it into another. (Walter)
Well, they were funner than the rest of them. Because you got to like go off things, movies
and books and stuff. And it was kind of frustrating, but you wanted to get it so that’s
what made it fun. Like you wanted to keep trying. (Honey)

Educ. Sci. 2021,11, 588 12 of 19
One of the other ways in which launching the mathematics through the narratives
supported student mathematical thinking was that it enabled students to focus on the
related visual images and illustrations. Although students were not always able to clearly
articulate how viewing these images assisted them in understanding the mathematics, it
seems that in part they made abstract ideas more concrete and accessible.
And I think the video or book sometimes makes it a little easier to work out
. . .
Like with
the toilet one you could see it was as big as your hand. (Nancy)
You got to see the stuff that was happening instead of maybe being told. And then you
got to like do an activity on it, like go back and look over it
. . .
because you sort of have a
picture of it . . . I don’t know, it just helps. (Eliza)
But I found this one a bit clearer than it [mathematics] usually is
. . .
I don’t know if it
was visuals because you read the book to us but I just kind of got it. (Felicity)
Other students noted more specifically that the dynamic imagery (viewing the movie
clip and short film) further supported their understanding, implying that the moving
images served as a model for the mathematical idea.
I like the films so that you could see it virtually and what was going on. So you see,
especially with the shrunken toilet one, you could kind of get the picture of how far it had
shrunken
. . .
So you could like work it out a lot easier with the film. If you, like go back
to see how much it had shrunken
. . .
I think the film is easiest because you can actually
see it
. . .
instead if you write it on the board, it could be a bit different to what actually
has happened. (Cameron)
Because you kind of, like mainly with the videos, you can see it in your mind as well
. . .
Well, I feel like when the questions come up in tests, like someone has this many cookies
and they have to share it with an amount of people, I usually try to count in my mind,
but I haven’t seen the people. (Jonah)
Finally, it was also noted that the narrative presentation helped students to think back
on the mathematical task, and made it easier to bring the problem to mind.
It did help with my learning [that it was connected to the story] because if I kind of get
stuck I just remember the story and go on from that. (Di)
They were definitely better than regular math lessons
. . .
because of the storyline, you
know what you are thinking about. (Leroy)
It is kind of easier to understand what you need to do
. . .
Because with the story you can
always think back on it and . . . you can remember it . . . you just think of the video and
you can just get the question in your head. (James)
3.4. Relatedness: Students Valued Opportunities to Collaborate and Interact (n = 3)
Although we argued that the manner in which the mathematics lessons were struc-
tured supported students in meeting their need for relatedness, only three students ex-
plicitly noted that they valued opportunities for collaboration and interaction during
the lesson.
Charlie found the opportunity to work with another student supported his learning,
and was something he was not typically afforded in a regular mathematics class.
Well, it was quite hard to figure out what to do. I worked with someone sometimes. Most
of the time. And we would do it together. [Did you find that collaboration helpful to your
learning?] Yeah. [Is that how you normally work during math lessons?] Not really, no.
Rachel indicated she appreciated exchanging ideas with peers while working on
problem solving tasks.
I found (We’re Going on a) Bear Hunt a bit easier. It had a bit more of a structure because
it said that it had to be under sixty minutes, and we could also work with other people.
[So, you like to be able to work with other people?] Yeah, because we could share ideas.

Educ. Sci. 2021,11, 588 13 of 19
Finally, Felicity appreciated that the teachers orchestrating the lessons (i.e., the first two
authors) interacted with the students, valued their thinking and support their autonomy.
Most lessons the teachers just say ‘oh this is division, you need to do it like this, go off
and do it.’ Because you were kind of interacting with us instead
. . .
you let us say our
noticings and do things that we wouldn’t normally do.
3.5. Preference for a Specific Narrative Medium
Participants were also asked during the interview if in the future, they would prefer
narrative-based mathematics lessons to be launched from picture story books, clips from
popular movies, or short films. Participant responses are aggregated in Table 2.
Table 2. Student preferences for narrative mediums to learn mathematics.
Narrative Medium Number of Students
(Percentage of Responding Students)
Picture Story Books 6 (27%)
Moving Picture 10 (45%)
Movie Clips 4
Short Films 3
Movie Clips or Short Films 3
No preference 6 (27%)
Total 22
Note: Two students were not probed about their preferences during the interview.
There was an evenly distributed spread of student preferences for using the three
narrative mediums to learn mathematics. Specifically, approximately equal numbers of
students preferred movie clips (n= 7), short films (n= 6), picture story books (n= 6) or had
no preference for a particular narrative medium (n= 6).
Students who preferred learning mathematics through the picture story book medium
noted that, compared with the moving pictures, picture story books allowed students to
absorb the narrative at their own pace. It was also suggested that picture story books
demanded more focused attention and provided less opportunities to become distracted.
I think a book would be better because if you just do a video everybody would get,
um, well most people would get caught up in the video and not really listen and think
about. With the book you can actually look at the pictures for longer and read the words
yourself. (Ashleigh)
Well, I think a book is probably more interesting because you probably have to be really
focused with the pictures and illustrations more than a movie. In a movie you’re just
watching what everyone’s doing. With a book you’re actually like listening and kind of
like seeing what the illustrations are. (Di)
Maybe books more. Because I don’t really know, to me I just thought we could read it and
look back over it and look at all the pages as well and go back to reference it. (Shaun)
By contrast, students who nominated either a clip from a movie or a short film
emphasized that the moving images helped to make the lesson clearer and easier to follow,
possibly because the experience was more immersive.
I’d probably choose clips of films
. . .
Or maybe the short film one. I just feel like the video
is more clear
. . .
because they are kind of like actually moving and doing it. Where in a
book it is kind of like just pictures. (Jonah)
I think a video because it’s got a bit more visuals and it still has the sound. Videos are
basic visuals, so you can see what’s going on with it. In the book it was sometimes a bit
hard to see because I was sitting so far back. So, like, because it was up on the big TV and
we could all see it, and it kind of gave you the sounds of it. And I don’t know why but the
sounds kind of helped. (Nancy)

Educ. Sci. 2021,11, 588 14 of 19
Students who nominated movies specifically tended to emphasize that they found
watching movies more enjoyable and entertaining.
I like watching movies and they’re just fun to make it interesting. (Sid)
Students who nominated short films tended to emphasize the value of experiencing
the complete story.
Maybe the entire short film because you’ve got the whole thing
. . .
because I might have
missed something in Despicable Me if I haven’t watched it. And then I don’t understand
how they got that shrink ray
. . .
it just helps it [the mathematics] a little bit to come
together more and the answers work. (Eliza)
I like the short films. So, you can see, it’s not really long, it’s not like really slow ‘Then he
walks back to the house’, it’s like a speed run through a little story
. . .
You won’t be sitting
there for another ten minutes and like ‘what happened at the start again?’. (Cameron)
This was particularly the case for students who were less familiar with popular movies.
I would do short films because with movies there’s not a lot of them that I’ve seen. (James)
Indeed, familiarity with the narrative medium was an important reason nominated by
several students, regardless of their preference.
[Preference for movies] because more people know the movies than the short films and the
books. (Leroy)
[Preference for books] And also, I haven’t watched any of that, but I, like, knew the
book. (Zed)
[No preference] You would have read or seen them before. And then that would kind of
give you a little help because you know what the movies about or the book. (Walter)
Students who had no preference for a particular narrative medium tended to empha-
size that the value was in launching the lesson through a rich narrative, independent of the
medium. This was exemplified by Hermin’s comment:
It doesn’t even have to be a movie or a book or anything. I like it if there’s a story
. . .
I personally like it to be a more elaborate story. Because just for me it makes it [the
mathematics] lots more interesting . . . .
4. Discussion and Conclusions
The first research question examined how students compared the experience of learn-
ing mathematics through challenging mathematical tasks launched from a narrative, com-
pared with a typical mathematics lesson. All students enjoyed the lessons, whilst almost all
found the mathematics considerably more demanding than regular classroom mathematics
instruction. Moreover, all four themes that emerged through an analysis of the student
interview data resonated with one of the three basic psychological needs articulated in
self-determination theory: autonomy, competence and relatedness [
58
]; although the theme
connected to relatedness (“Students valued opportunities to collaborate and interact”) only
emerged after an additional examination of the interview data.
As put forward in our theoretical framework, embedding mathematical tasks in rich,
familiar narratives did indeed make the learning of mathematics more purposeful from
the perspective of students, thus supporting student autonomy. It is striking that this
connection between the current suite of lessons and more meaningful mathematics was
made by most students (83%), despite this issue not being directly probed for in student
interviews. Autonomy was also supported by the structure of the mathematical tasks
allowing for multiple solutions and/or multiple solution pathways, resonating with other
studies that have examined the student experience of learning through challenging tasks
supported by enabling and extending prompts [
8
]. Moreover, despite these mathematical
tasks being challenging, students felt competent grappling with the mathematical ideas,
which were made more tangible to students through their representation in the narrative.

Educ. Sci. 2021,11, 588 15 of 19
Again, the majority of students (67%) connected these lessons to their sense of feeling
competent, for example, noting that these tasks were clearer and more accessible than a
typical mathematics lesson, despite this issue not being probed directly.
In contrast to the other two psychological needs, there was only limited evidence
of the narrative-based lesson structure supporting the need for relatedness. Rather than
assume that these lessons only met students need for relatedness in a limited capacity, it
may instead be speculated that this need was met implicitly. For example, it seems that
students did in fact value the shared social experience of being absorbed in a culturally
relevant narrative to launch a mathematics lesson, as evidenced by their reflection that
learning mathematics in this manner was more purposeful and enjoyable. However, they
did not explicitly highlight the social relatedness dimension, which may in part reflect the
relatively young age of the students involved (i.e., 10 and 11 year olds).
The second research question considered whether students had a preference for a
particular medium when learning mathematics through a narrative. Overall, a diversity of
student preferences was noted, perhaps suggesting that it would be prudent for teachers
to consider using a range of mediums to contextualize mathematical tasks, rather than
make assumptions about which medium students might prefer. This resonates with Clarke
and Roche’s [
13
] finding that student preferences for the types of mathematical tasks they
engage with are eclectic.
The comparative advantage of moving images (i.e., movie clips and short films) for at
least some of the students who reported preferring this medium is that it did indeed serve to
dynamically represent the notion of transformation and scale [
66
], and also supported these
students to visualize the associated mathematical problem [
2
]. We postulated that both
these two mechanisms would be important for helping students to meet the psychological
need for competence as they worked on a narrative-based, challenging mathematical
task. By contrast, those students who preferred picture story books often noted that this
medium allowed them to absorb the narrative at their own pace and was less distracting,
perhaps indicating that working on tasks connected to picture story books were particularly
effective in meeting the psychological need for autonomy for such students. However, our
overall sense of evaluating the student interview data is that the differences in mediums
had only a relatively marginal influence on the student learning experience, and that
students perceived all three lessons to be enjoyable, challenging and distinct from their
usual mathematics instruction. Consequently, we would suggest that educators and
researchers focused on the benefits of teaching mathematics through picture story books
(e.g., [
27
,
30
]) consider extending their definition of narrative to encompass other mediums,
such as movie clips and short films.
Limitations and Implications
The usual caveats apply to a small-scale exploratory study that was undertaken in a
single school with students across a single year level in terms of the limited generalizability
of the findings. In addition, we acknowledge that the first two authors are experienced
mathematics educators with some specialist knowledge in teaching mathematics through
challenging tasks in general, and tasks involving rich narratives in particular, and con-
sequently we cannot assume that generalist primary teachers would necessarily be able
to seamlessly implement these tasks and related pedagogies in their own classrooms.
However, we still believe that the findings have important implications for practice.
This study highlighted the impact of familiar, relatable narratives as an effective
way to make the learning of mathematics more purposeful and engaging. There is an
opportunity for mathematics teachers to leverage student familiarity and interest in a
particular narrative as a means to further promote their sense of autonomy, as described
through self-determination theory. Specifically, students could be first invited to share
their own favorite narratives, including picture story books, short films and feature movies.
Next, teachers, perhaps supported by mathematics leaders in their schools, could develop
challenging tasks around these student-chosen narratives using a structure similar to that

Educ. Sci. 2021,11, 588 16 of 19
outlined in this paper and elaborated elsewhere, which we refer to as the ‘narrative-first
approach’ [
17
]. The second author on this paper has in fact experimented with using narra-
tives chosen by students in his own mathematics teaching, specifically using a narrative
context from the movie Shrek (as requested by students) to launch a rich, mathematical
investigation [
83
]. Anecdotally, this generated high levels of student engagement and deep
mathematical thinking.
Tertiary institutions supporting the development of preservice teacher educators
should emphasize pedagogical approaches to teaching mathematics that promote purpose-
ful learning and a high level of engagement, and we would encourage the inclusion of
problem solving tasks contextualized around meaningful narratives as outlined in this
article as one such approach. This could include preservice teachers developing their
own challenging tasks around familiar narrative contexts, as well as them subsequently
teaching with these tasks in a practical classroom environment. This may help to address
one notable barrier to teaching mathematics using narratives such as picture story books
that has been noted in the literature; specifically, that some teachers lack the pedagogical
knowledge, confidence and experience to feel comfortable teaching mathematics in this
manner [29].
Finally, there is an opportunity for further research into the value of different narrative
contexts for supporting student engagement in mathematical problem solving. In addition
to the narrative mediums utilized in this study, it may be valuable to explore the use of
personal narratives (i.e., connecting mathematical problems to a students’ own life)—which
may be generated by the teacher or the students themselves—or teacher narratives (i.e.,
a teacher providing a personal narrative to contextualize a problem). There is also an
opportunity to explore the effectiveness of using various narrative forms to contextualize
mathematical learning amongst different age groups of students, including early years
students and middle secondary school students.
To conclude, the current study provides further evidence that the use of narratives
in their various forms allows mathematics to be taught in an integrated and embedded
manner. It is worth noting that such an instructional approach is highly consistent with
what has been described as driving the STEM agenda, that is, to provide “learning expe-
riences that prepare students for a future that relies on them being innovative problem
solvers” [84] (p. 27).
Author Contributions:
J.R. and T.R. were responsible for conceptualizing the paper, developing the
methodology, teaching the lessons, and analyzing the data. J.R. wrote the theoretical framework,
methodology and discussion/conclusions and T.R. the implications. A.R. undertook the literature
review, helped with editing the paper and organized the paper for publication. All authors have read
and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
Funding: This research received no external funding.
Institutional Review Board Statement:
The study was conducted according to the guidelines of the
Declaration of Helsinki, and approved by the Institutional Review Board (or Ethics Committee) of
Monash University (2019-21611-34962).
Informed Consent Statement:
Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study.
Data Availability Statement: Data are available from the authors on request.
Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest.
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