For the Proposed Doctoral Thesis –Building My Identity Through My Stories: Transmedia Storytelling as Educational Intervention for SEND and BAME Students during Transition in HE
EDUCATION AS PAYING ATTENTION TO THE STORIES OR THE MEANING THAT CHILDREN ARE CREATING IN THEIR LIVES MEANS VALUING THEIR AUTONOMY AS PRIMARY ‘AUTHORS’ OF THEIR LIVES.
Carl Leggo, 2007
Autobiographical Poet, Professor (Language and Literacy Education)
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Proposed Title of Research Project
Funding
Proposed Research Question (RQ)
Subject Area, Aims, Objectives
Contexts: Historical, Contemporary, Theoretical
Methodology
Ethical Dimensions of the Research
Forms of The Final Presentation
Alignment To Falmouth Research Programme
Potential Collaboration – Internal & External
Selected Journal Article For Reference In Code Of Conduct
Indicative Bibliography
Transitional & Well-being Project References
Recent Doctoral Project References At Falmouth University, 2019-2024
Proposed Project Timeline (Work Plan)
Essential Budget Proposal
PROPOSED TITLE OF RESEARCH PROJECT
Building My Identity Through My Stories:
Transmedia Storytelling as Educational Intervention for Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) and Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) Students during Transition in Higher Education (HE)
FUNDING
The proposed PhD research will be primarily funded by the Falmouth Doctoral Studentship, while open call opportunities from Arts Council England and the Arts and Humanities Research Council will be actively monitored throughout the project timeline.
PROPOSED RESEARCH QUESTION (RQ)
1. What are the transitional barriers to identity reconstruction and well-being for SEND and BAME students within transition services in higher education?
2. How can the design of transmedia storytelling (TS) address the limitations of existing top-down transition services by fostering identity development and well-being?
3. How can TS serve as an educational intervention for identity reconstruction, particularly for marginalised students with SEND or from BAME communities?
SUBJECT AREA, AIMS, OBJECTIVES
Subject Areas:
This research examines how TS can support targeted students during transition to HE through a student-centred, creative approach integrating special education, inclusive design, and art-based methodologies
Aims:
To develop and evaluate TS as an educational intervention for addressing gaps in transition services, which are predominantly delivered through a top-down institutional approach. It explores TS’s potential to facilitate identity reconstruction and self-expression across diverse creative mediums.
Objectives:
Contextual: Identify barriers and opportunities within current transition practices in HE.
Practical: Design and implement in-person transmedia storytelling workshops and online courses to provide a flexible, inclusive, and student-centred approach to transition support.
Theoretical: Develop a multifaceted framework for HE transitions that embraces identity fluidity and the experience of becoming through TS.
Community-based: Pilot a TS initiative for SEND and BAME students to inform inclusive institutional practices and promote student agency in transition support services.
CONTEXTS
Early 20th-century adaptations and serialised narratives established the foundation for TS, a narrative technique in which a story unfolds across multiple media platforms. Each platform contributes uniquely to the overarching narrative. Widely utilised in the entertainment and marketing industries, examples such as the Marvel Cinematic Universe demonstrate TS’s versatility in engaging audiences through interconnected storytelling elements. These examples also highlight how TS builds diverse narrative experiences. However, while past studies have explored TS in participatory culture, its application in special education and as an educational intervention remains underexplored.
Figure 1: Theoretical Framework
In educational contexts, TS enables students to engage with stories non-linearly and encourages identity exploration through adaptive media and self-paced entry points. Potter (2014) demonstrates TS’s potential as a participatory medium for identity reconstruction at individual and community levels. Unlike its entertainment applications, which prioritise audience engagement and marketability, TS in education emphasises participation and identity exploration. Despite this potential, existing TS applications often overlook the experiences and narratives of marginalised groups, who face unique challenges shaped by socio-cultural and systemic inequities that influence their identity development and sense of belonging during transition.
Transition theories similarly emphasise dynamic and non-linear processes. Past studies conceptualise transitions as ongoing processes rather than fixed events. Early models, such as Kohlberg’s (1958) and Chickering and Reisser’s (1969) framed transitions as linear stages of personal development. Later frameworks, including Ecological Systems Theory (Bronfenbrenner, 1979) and Schlossberg’s Transition Theory (1981), examined the adaptive and non-linear interplay between individuals and environments. Recent approaches, such as Transition Theory (Meleis et al., 2000), underscore the multifaceted and fluid nature of transitions while focusing on individual perceptions.
Despite these theoretical advancements, institutional approaches remain static, top-down, and reliant on pre-entry questionnaires, peer mentoring, and virtual reality tours. While these supports address practical aspects, socio-cultural and personal narratives that significantly shape identity and overall well-being are underexplored. Identity is a key lens to reflect the processes of adaptation, belonging, and self-concept. This gap is particularly pronounced for SEND and BAME students, whose lived experiences are often marginalised.
This research expands the application of TS beyond its entertainment roots to advance holistic understandings of identity and well-being during transitions. By aligning TS’s adaptive and participatory framework with the fluid nature of transitions, this research offers a dynamic, studentcentred approach to identity reconstruction.
METHODOLOGY
Figure 2: Conceptual Framework (Link to Full-Size Figure)
This research adopts a Participatory Action Research (PAR) methodology to generate new knowledge through collaborative, reflective, and reflexive practices with the community. By engaging participants as co-researchers, PAR ensures that the interventions are culturally sensitive and tailored to the unique needs of SEND and BAME students transitioning to higher education (HE) (see Figure 2).
Using a mixed-methods approach, the research combines questionnaires and semi-structured interviews to gather baseline and endline data. This data captures participants' personal narratives, lived experiences, and engagement in educational intervention-based events. The integration of quantitative and qualitative data will provide a comprehensive analysis of identity formation and wellbeing development, contributing to the creation of a TS-based transition framework.
An autoethnographic approach will also guide the use and analysis of visual field notes and TS artworks co-created by participants. These creative outputs situate the research within a broader societal and creative framework for an exploration of personal narratives and identity formation. As a practitioner-researcher, I will reflect on my own transition experiences to examine interconnected dynamics of identity, community, and TS across creative mediums.
2: Creative Mediums and Their Connections to Academic Departments for Transmedia Storytelling Workshops (Link to Full-Size Figure)
Figure
The research will develop trauma-informed pedagogy-based workshops that invite students to select one creative medium from their existing practice and another that is new to them, serving as an artistic metaphor for their past and future selves and as a method for navigating identity formation during transitions. Workshops will be structured according to the creative medium specialised in by each academic department at Falmouth to maximise a tailored and student-centred design. These will include: (1) Creative Writing, (2) Drawing/Sketching, (3) Sound Art/Music, and (4) Video/Photography (see Figure 4).
Two types of workshops, (1) "Understanding the Past" and (2) "Defining the Future," will run on a fortnightly basis over five months, providing a year-long transition programme rooted in Penryn, Falmouth, and Truro (see Figure 4). Overall, the programme aims to include N = 60 participants per academic year. Each workshop will comprise 10 to 15 internal students. The total target is N = 40 participants from the University of Exeter (Penryn) and Falmouth University, and N = 20 to 30 external participants. However, there will be no capped quota for online course participants.
Figure 4: Sequence of Workshop Activities
The programme will collaborate with both internal and external partners, such as FX Plus, the Student Support Team, Falmouth’s Digital Learning, and community-based organisations such as The Arts Society Falmouth (Appendix 1), to ensure an adequate sample size. This approach will establish an ecological practice in participant recruitment by incorporating both internal and external stakeholders.
Experience and feedback from the workshops will contribute to the design of a self-paced online course, which will also adopt trauma-informed pedagogy. The courses will be structured to include artwork submissions, serving as qualitative data to address RQ 1 and 2.
To ensure the programme aligns with trauma-informed pedagogy minimise the risk of retraumatisation in its delivery, it will engage healthcare professionals as advisors for safeguarding measures, including CBT practitioner, mental health nurse, art therapist, and counsellor from a list of local community organisations (Appendix 1).
In addition, scholars in creative arts therapy, educational psychology, and storytelling will be invited to serve as academic advisors. It ensures a balance between theoretical foundations and practical application (Appendix 2). This interdisciplinary collaboration will strengthen the framework to support both student well-being and identity development throughout the programme.
ETHICAL DIMENSIONS OF THE RESEARCH
The project adopts a trauma-informed approach, consulting both practitioners and scholars. Opt-in and opt-out approaches will be provided across project phases. Pseudo-anonymization will be applied to all public-facing outputs. The project will consider ethical issues emerging from participatory arts methods for participants with traumatic experiences (Appendix 3).
FORMS OF THE FINAL PRESENTATION
Workshop Series
Shareable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) Packages for Online Learning
Project Website for Recruitment and Showcase Written Thesis
ALIGNMENT TO FALMOUTH RESEARCH PROGRAMME
The proposed research situates the practice in both Art Education and Special Education which will align to the existing research focuses from the following Research Centres:
(1) Centre for Arts & Health
The proposed research adopts trauma-informed pedagogy and non-clinical interventions to design the TS workshops and online courses for SEND and BAME students, who will benefit from learning, shadowing, and collaborating with research members from ATTUNE and Springboard Studios.
Through interdisciplinary collaboration, the project will not only gain practical experience in connecting Cornwall with well-being programming for targeted students in HE but will also expand the centre’s community engagement and impact by developing a scalable, accessible framework and for marginalised student narratives.
(2) Centre for Pedagogy Futures
The proposed research will develop two self-paced interactive online courses (Sharable Content Object Reference Model) using Articulate Storyline (Link to example). The project opens up opportunities for collaboration with research members who specialise in digital learning and will provide the online courses to academic partners as ZIP files that can be easily installed in any Learning Management System (LMS), including but not limited to Moodle, Canvas, D2L, Blackboard, and WordPress (plugin-based).
My expertise in instructional design, as well as LMS design and management, will further support the centre’s knowledge transfer/exchange phase with practical outputs.
Alignment to Doctoral Brief:
Right support, right place, right time: Effective transitions for SEND students
Proposed supervisor: Dr Jennifer Young
COLLABORATION
Participant Recruitment, On-campus Promotion, and Collaboration
• The Students’ Union, FXPlus – through Elected Position
• ResLife - https://www.instagram.com/fxreslife/
• FX Creative Exchange / Exeter Arts and Culture – within UoE and Falmouth
• The Compass
External
• The Arts Society Falmouth, Young Arts Project, through Volunteer Position
• Hong Kong Student Alliance CIC – https://www.hksacic.co.uk/about-us
• Arts Well – https://arts-well.com/ [Director, Dr Jane Moss, PhD(Falmouth)]
• Young People Cornwall – https://youngpeoplecornwall.org/
By reviewing established projects and existing research, the proposal situates itself within a broader academic and practical context, such as effective strategies, collaborative models, and established frameworks.
RECENT DOCTORAL PROJECT
REFERENCES AT FALMOUTH UNIVERSITY, 2019-2024
Understanding the practices of recent PhD graduates at Falmouth University will offer insights into how researchers have navigated the challenges of working in a location relatively distant from many academic institutions and clinical . This will help me understand how they have positioned their work within the local contexts of Falmouth and Penryn, contextualise the research and adapt effectively to this distinctive research environment.
PROPOSED PROJECT TIMELINE
Case Study at Falmouth and Framework Development (Hypothesis, pre-test)
Design and Development of Workshops and Materials Workshops Implementation and Data Collection (Post-test)
Online Course Development and Implementation
Data Analysis and Thesis Writing
: Progress report to supervision committee members
FALMOUTH UNIVERSITY. 2024. ‘Term Dates 2025-26 ’. Falmouth University [online]. Available at: https://www.falmouth.ac.uk/expe rience/term-dates/term-dates2025-26 [accessed 12 Jan 2025].
