Helen Evans joins iHuman as a visiting PhD researcher, and will be presenting the following research at this seminar. 

This study emerged organically from my experiences as a practitioner in college provisions for learners with Special Educational Needs (SEND). Disheartened by standard student council practice and uninspired by student voice literature, I developed ‘Inclusive Students as Researchers’ (iSaR) as an accessible, social learning model of SEND Student Voice which is strongly influenced by inclusive and participatory research practice. Over five academic terms, eight disabled participants completed research training and two (student-led) cycles of action research, looking into experiences of starting college and then experiences of work placements. 

My research study asks: What is the value of an Inclusive Students as Researchers (iSaR) model of student voice, as experienced by student-researchers who have learning disabilities, the researcher and supporting staff, and college leadership? As such, I have utilised Wenger-Trayner’s (2020) Value Creation Framework (VCF) to explore where value has been experienced, and to build in further opportunities to experience value. I adapted the VCF to make it more accessible for student-participants by creating an easy-read VCF document. I have also been developing a novel method: Photo-based writing scaffolds, to support greater student participation in the creation of contribution data (Value Creation Stories). 

My PhD study has supported and respected the student-participants’ capacity to participate in the practical and more theoretical side of collaborative research by rendering it more accessible. In doing so, it raised participants’ awareness of their agency – their ability to make the difference they wished to see, and helped develop their understanding of how their personal and collective actions created the changes necessary to make this difference. This was the difference I wished to make with my PhD study: for student-participants to experience their agency; to observe and record it, to reflect on and understand it, in order to (hopefully) be confident enough to exercise it in their future life, outside college, should they need.