What can students learn from fictional literature? Quite a bit, scholars say

Abstract

ABSTRACT Using fictional literature in public administration classrooms has been advocated by public administration educators since the middle of the past century. Stories are asserted to be a legitimate tool to understand social systems, management models, and ethical dilemmas. It is argued that fictional literature influences how students perceive the complicated contexts within which public management occurs. Yet with one exception, public administration scholars have not tested what knowledge students gain from engaging with fictional literature. A systematic literature review is undertaken to learn what scholars from other disciplines have learned about knowledge gained from using fictional literature as a pedagogical tool. The review shows that fictional literature can lead to gains in factual, conceptual, procedural, and metacognitive knowledge. From the identified articles, lessons about how educators can effectively incorporate fictional literature as part of public administration coursework are drawn.