Person-Focused Pedagogy: A Qualitative Exploration of How Story-Driven Learning Shapes Students’ Personal and Professional Development

Abstract

Story-driven learning (i.e., making meaning of personal life stories) has been proposed as a pedagogical approach for supporting students’ personal and professional development, yet its impact on biomedical engineering (BME) students remains underexplored. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 16 biomedical engineering students who were formerly enrolled in The Art of Telling Your Story, a required story-driven learning course in the department of biomedical engineering at Georgia Tech to examine how they described its impact on their personal and professional development. We used inductive, reflexive thematic analysis to identify recurring themes in participant accounts. The present study uncovered nine themes regarding student impact ( Person-Focused, Identity [subthemes: Reflection & Exploration, Growth & Self-Discovery ], Self-Integration, Vulnerability, Connection, Empathy, Application Skills, and Career Development ), spanning individual, relational, and professional domains of student development. The nine themes identified suggest that story-driven learning may support forms of personal and professional development that are relevant to biomedical engineering education and that are consistent with narrative identity processes that emerge in early adulthood.