Stories are the mechanism through which humans construct reality and make sense of the world around them. Yet, research on the positive effects of narrative in game-based and other learning environments is quite variable, and the relevance of narrative to the learning sciences is not well understood. Identifying precisely how narrative intertwines with human experience of the lived-in world requires the application of a situated cognition framework to understand recipient-content-context interactions as dynamic and co-determined. To begin unpacking this issue, a narrative-structured, game-based learning program, Project TECHNOLOGIA, was used to target in-context, on-the-fly dialogic interactions between narrative “producers” (i.e., instructors) and “recipients” (i.e., participating students). Results indicate that there may be value in pursuing narrative as an instructional game mechanic for complex social, cultural, and intellectual issues as well as the induction of real-world goal adoption. Recommendations for further research are provided.
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