Welcoming Strangers: expanding our understanding of Further Education Sport Students as researchers through intercultural experiences

There exists, currently, a paucity of research into how Further Education (FE) students develop research skills, especially Sport students (Connelly, et al., 2015). These students, might be viewed as strangers to such research practices. This paper explored creative research experiences of HN Sports Coaching students engaged in SQA programmes through an ERASMUS+ visit to the International Olympic Academy, Greece (Kara, 2015). Participatory research methods engaged Sports Students throughout the research stages to increase learnability and ‘defang’ technical expertise (Cowley et al., 2017). What Easton (1996, p37), describes as “the fruitful tension between participation and expertise”, was one of the driving forces of this enterprise. Our approach draws upon qualitative data co-created with students including interview design, researcher reflexivity and development of data collection using online techniques, art-based journal activities, and a range of post-event data uses (Snee et al, 2016). Using thematic analysis; FE student researcher legitimisation and identity; reflexive research action; intercultural settings as an important tool for merging formal and nonformal learning, emerged (Clark & Braun, 2013). We have also drawn upon Brandsma’s (2017) concept of ‘polarisation’, in explaining the deficit of research involving FE students. We concluded that the medium of research and intercultural experiences can empower Sports Students.