Dwyer, Meredyth (2019) Educational Benefits from Immersion into Fiction and Nonfiction Literary Worlds. Masters thesis, Concordia University.
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Abstract
Reading fiction is positively correlated with many educational and social benefits. The current study explored a comparison of historical fiction and nonfiction read alouds to determine if differences were observed in student’s transportation, content learning and socio-emotional development. The participants consisted of 40 students with ages ranging from 9- to 12-years-old. Over the period of one week, four classrooms were visited by a researcher for three sessions where excerpts from a fiction novel or nonfiction book were read aloud. The participants were then assessed on their content knowledge of the Great Depression, and their self-reports of transportation, perspective taking, fantasy, empathetic concern and helping behaviours. Through quantitative and qualitative data analysis, it was discovered that both fiction and nonfiction groups learned the same amount of content; however, fiction allowed for more positive relationships between transportation and socio-emotional development self-reports. Therefore, fiction novels can provide opportunities for the learning of historical information, while enabling a child’s growth in socio-emotional development.
| Divisions: | Concordia University > Faculty of Arts and Science > Education |
|---|---|
| Item Type: | Thesis (Masters) |
| Authors: | Dwyer, Meredyth |
| Institution: | Concordia University |
| Degree Name: | M.A. |
| Program: | Child Studies |
| Date: | 13 November 2019 |
| Thesis Supervisor(s): | Martin-Chang, Sandra |
| ID Code: | 986304 |
| Deposited By: | Meredyth Dwyer |
| Deposited On: | 25 Jun 2020 19:21 |
| Last Modified: | 25 Jun 2020 19:21 |
References:
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