Formal schooling and educational professionals are continuously looking for ways to create positive learning environments while facilitating both academic and social needs and goals of students. Modern curricula call for active, experiential and communal learning to meet the requirements of 21st century learning and to prepare students for novel challenges in the ever-changing job market and life in general. Stemming from classical theories of play and learning, <i>gamification</i> has been shown to be beneficial in making education gameful, fun and effective especially for young people. As part of gamification, via the use of narratives, characters and role-play, <i>storification</i> is a pedagogical tool increasingly implemented in the range of short-termed stand-alone activities to long-term holistic storified learning environments. However, the literature on storification as a pedagogical tool and its relation to students’ experiences is still largely limited. Therefore, the overarching aim of this dissertation is to add to the knowledge on: <i>How is storification in formal education associated with students’ school experience, skills and attitudes as well as social behavior? </i>

To this end, the dissertation investigates two existing cases that employ storification in pedagogy and in learning environments within formal education for 12–14-year-old students. Firstly, a storified school with various fictional (Harry Potter, Star Wars) and non-fictional (sports stadium, nature) stories and themes is investigated to ground a theory of storified pedagogy and to examine its relation to students’ school experience as well as on social behavior. Secondly, as part of storification, role-play-based environment is examined via quasi experiment to investigate the associations between students’ role-play and gameful experience towards their skill development and attitude formation within the framework of 21st century learning. With this mixed method design, the aim is to understand the holistic nature of educational storification and reveal its potential benefits and detriments in terms of students’ school experience, social behavior, as well as attitude and skill propensity.

The results suggest that storification can enhance education by supporting students’ school experience, social interactions as well as skills and attitudes towards the 21st century learning framework. Engaging in pedagogical activities introduced within storification can strengthen students’ feelings of community and empowerment, which further supports the academic and social atmosphere of both students and teachers. Additionally, positive experiences of role-play and gamefulness may foster future-oriented propensities in terms of, for example, flexibility, self-direction, productivity and social skills. Similarly, the findings show how attitudes towards these personal skills could be improved through experiential role-play-based activities. However, potential confounding, novelty and habituation effects need to be reflected upon in both short-term and long-term storification. Additionally, careful attention is to be paid on the quality of the storified education, as well as on the selected story and milieu, which may advocate unwanted values, exclusionary behavior or other questionable lessons via hidden curriculum.

Since it is essential to reduce the gap between research and the emerging pedagogical trends, the contributions of this dissertation stem from both theoretical and practical implications of storification integrated into formal education settings. While understudied, storification shares many similarities with other playful approaches to education, which can be considered as diverse tools in shaping learning environments and conveying various pedagogical contents. Through the investigation of existing cases that utilize storification within a broad range of affordances, this dissertation sheds light on the potential storification holds in the midst of digital revolution; while technological devices can support novel ways of immersion and aid content delivery, there is great value in the emphasis on social, face-to-face interactions occurring in tangible learning environments. Hence, based on both the grounded theory models of storification and the significant results from a storified intervention, this dissertation aims to advance the understanding and knowledge on playful approaches to formal education, and serve as a steppingstone for future works of both scholars as well as teachers in hopes to pursue effective, engaging and enjoyable education.