Email: rt4g14@soton.ac.uk
Roseanna Tansley is a postgraduate research student based in Southampton Education School at the University of Southampton.
Roseanna's research focuses on exploring the use of intense interests within teaching to support learning and transitions for autistic young people in secondary schools, specifically from the perspectives of autistic young people themselves and their teachers, using a creative and participatory research approach.
Start date: October 2020
Working title: Using Intense Interests to Support Inclusive Learning and Transition Experiences for Autistic Young People in Secondary Schools
Supervisors: Professor Sarah Parsons and Dr Hanna Kovshoff
For secondary school-aged autistic pupils, the evidence for how their intense interests can be used to support teaching learning is limited and forms a more social and within-child focus. Additionally, this evidence largely neglects the voices of the children themselves. Roseanna’s research explores what intense interests mean to autistic young people and their teachers, and whether these could be incorporated within teaching and learning as inclusive practice. Roseanna adopts a three-phase, qualitative and participatory approach in her research, utilising interviews, observations, and creative methods to include a range of stakeholder voices within the project.
Roseanna completed her BSc Education undergraduate degree at the University of Southampton in the summer of 2020. During her final year, Roseanna completed a scoping review for her dissertation which explored the evidence base for intense interests being used in teaching and learning. This review identified no UK-based, peer-reviewed papers on the matter, and that all six of the returned papers identified from the US consistently maintained the deficit-based view of intense interests being a within-child behaviour change mechanism, rather than an inclusive and strengths-based approach. This review was published into the European Journal of Special Needs Education and provided the rationale behind Roseanna's doctoral research focus.
In addition to studying for her PhD, Roseanna has undertaken research analysis work for the ESRC-funded 'Our Stories' project led by Professor Sarah Parsons and Dr Hanna Kovshoff; and provided research assistance for the Wessex Cancer Alliance to explore how cancer care can be made more accessible to autistic people.
Roseanna also works at the University of Southampton as a Lead Student Ambassador and has supported the events team during visit days and open days. She volunteers at Lordshill Youth Project to assist in the organisation and running of activities developed to support young people in the Lordshill area. Roseanna has a previous employment background of optics, retail and hospitality.