Why or when to include narrative and voice elements in educational texts?: Dutch publishers’ opinions and policies

Abstract

This study presents the results of two focus group sessions and a group interview on the opinions and policies of Dutch educational publishers regarding the use of narrative and voice elements in educational texts for biology, geography, and history. This gives insight into the perceived advantages, disadvantages, and additional considerations publishers take into account during decision making concerning these elements. It appears that publishers’ motives for including narrative and voice elements are not influenced by educational level (primary vs. secondary education) but do depend on school subject (biology vs. geography vs. history). For instance, publishers strategically add narrative elements to history texts, in order to distinguish different historical perspectives and to stimulate students to imagine themselves in another time period. For biology and geography, however, publishers experience a tension between adding such elements and keeping the texts short and goal-oriented. In addition, publishers are torn between including narrative texts because these are favored by teachers and leaving them out because of a lack of convincing empirical effects on reading and learning outcomes.