Welcome to the Scholarship Review 2023

Helen Fogg Director of Higher Education

Welcome to the 2023 edition of the Scholarship Review. This publication is one of the mechanisms through which staff at Blackpool and The Fylde College (B&FC) can disseminate their research and scholarship outcomes and to share these with the cohesive, self-critical academic community.

The review opens with Carrie Lee’s paper entitled “Plastic Pandemic: A Green Criminological Investigation into the Ecological Impact of Covid-19”. It examines the increased use of single-use plastics during the Covid-19 pandemic and the notion that plastic is still seen as a protector rather than a polluter.

Our second submission comes from Michael Holdsworth, with an essay called “The Actor as a Tourist in a New City”. The essay is a series of musings and translations born from Michael’s attendance at the S Word Symposium in Prague in November 2022. Michael views his trip from two perspectives; being an actor and a tourist and his essay is the result of this intersection.

The next submission is from Sara Shotton, with a paper called “Perceptions of Academic Preparedness: Exploring the personal and organisational factors that contributed to preparing mature students academically in the first semester of a Foundation Degree”. The paper is born from following the experiences of three students as they progress through the first stages of a Foundation Degree. The paper highlights the need for a strategic and evidence-based approach to support the needs of mature students.

Robert Sims has co-authored a paper with Abhijit Karnik titled “Investigating the emergence of strategy in VR based reflective tasks”. The paper discusses the novel opportunities that VR presents for enhancing inquiry-based learning in education. The authors conclude that developments in this area of computing can allow students to remain active learners rather than passive.

Our fifth submission is from Paula Smithson, who provides a reflective paper titled “The Dark Side of Printmaking”. Paula examines print as a platform of multiple dimensions that links between the traditions of handmade print and the use of new technologies. Paula fuses her own experiences working with the medium with research methods and industry accepted practices and technologies.

Carolyn Foy’s paper is titled “Performance Management and Control”. The paper is split into two parts, with the first investigating the role of financial control in organisations and the value of this system as a performance assessment approach. Part two looks specifically at the financial performance of Amazon.com in 2022 from an investor’s standpoint.

Aaron Tonk’s paper is titled “Drive Thru’: A Collaboration with Stephen Clarke” and reflects his time curating photographs from Stephen Clarke that were taken during a visit to San Diego in 1986-87. Aaron used VR technology to construct a virtual gallery and his paper also explores how complex relationships between artist and curator can be.

Our next submission is from Lauren Watson, called “’Reader, I married him’”: Love, Marriage and the Development of Realism in Jayne Eyre”. This article looks at the portrayal of love and marriage in Jayne Eyre and compare it to how these concepts were represented more generally in the 18th century. It argues how the novel represents the societal, cultural and philosophical changes seen between the early 18th and mid-19th century and how character and plot illustrate these changes most clearly.

Lisa Gayton provides a research paper titled “Influence, affluence and expectations: a study on the corresponding factors impacting on the aspirations of children”. The research looks at primary aged children’s aspirations and the factors that influence this complex area. A study was conducted that looked at 16 children and their parents across two schools that varied socioeconomically, and the findings were used to draw conclusions.

Finally, Seamus Fox provides a Research Proposal, titled “Developing a new working methodology based on principles of digital game narratives to transform immersive theatre, focusing on Neil Druckmann’s The Last of Us franchise”. The research proposal seeks to answer several points, including: “What are the differences and similarities between immersive theatre and digital gaming?” and “How do audience members align with specific narrative perspectives?”.

We hope you engage with and enjoy this 2023 edition and that it motivates you to consider writing for the Scholarship Review in the future.