O35 Exploring narratives of physical activity and disability using story completion

Abstract

Background Disabled people face a multitude of social barriers to leading a physically active lifestyle. These barriers include a lack of knowledge and understanding from healthcare professionals and exercise practitioners, and negative attitudes from others in sport and exercise settings. Thus, there is a need to explore constructions of physical activity and disability and the cultural narratives that operate within sport, exercise and health contexts. Aims To explore sport and exercise science students’ constructions of physical activity and disability using story completion and to examine the methodological opportunities and challenges of using story completion to identify cultural narratives. Methods Story completion is a radically different approach to collecting qualitative data to explore social constructions concerning a certain topic and the socio-cultural discourses and dominant meanings available to participants. Story completion research involves participants being provided with the opening sentences of a hypothetical scenario – or story stem – and asked to write what happens next. Four story stems were designed and refined based upon a pilot study and feedback from experts in qualitative methods and disability. Ninety UK-based undergraduate sport and exercise science students wrote a story in response to one of the stems, randomly allocated. The stories were subject to a thematic and structural narrative analysis. Results Analysis is underway. The supercrip narrative was the most dominant narrative type drawn upon, with interwoven elements of tragedy and romance from a fairy-tale narrative. The less prescriptive story stems elicited the more diverse and creative stories in terms of length and detail. Conclusions The need for alternative stories of physical activity and disability that challenge the underlying ableist assumptions of the dominant supercrip narrative will be discussed. Reflections of story completion will be provided with recommendations for future use.