Schools have become important contexts for guiding students to develop self-understanding and explore life-related issues, with teachers serving as the most critical mediators in this process. In light of the inevitable reality of human mortality, education cannot avoid addressing this fundamental issue (McManus & Sally, 2019). Regardless of educational level, the exploration of life issues requires the active involvement of schools and educational professionals (Wango & Gwiyo, 2021). However, existing life education courses in teacher education programs tend to emphasize knowledge transmission and ethical discussions, while paying relatively little attention to learners’ lived experiences, and lack a curriculum model capable of integrating emotion, meaning, and practice.

    The literature indicates that artistic creation grants learners freedom of creativity and expression, enabling them to effectively manifest their individuality and transcend differences in ethnicity, language, and culture (Vaartio-Rajalin et al., 2020). Furthermore, providing learners with opportunities for choice in artistic activities constitutes an educational practice that respects subjectivity and embodies person-centered principles (WHO, 2019; Ekman et al., 2011; McCormack & McCance, 2006). These findings motivate the present study to explore the potential of expressive arts–based life education. Through creative expression, individuals are not only able to clarify how they deal with difficult life events, but also to reinterpret or transform their identities, thereby facilitating identity development (Lilgendahl, 2015) and the reconstruction of personal narratives. Self-understanding is fundamentally an interpretive process that develops gradually throughout the narrative process. Students discover and construct the self through narrative practices (Ricoeur, 1992), engaging in an internalized storytelling process that supports continuous self-exploration and self-understanding (McAdams & McLean, 2013).

    Building on these theoretical foundations, this study aims (1) to construct and articulate the core principles and pedagogical framework of an expressive arts–oriented life education curriculum, and (2) to investigate how pre-service teachers engage in the awareness, reflection, and integration of life meaning through participation in expressive arts activities. This study adopts Piggot-Irvine’s (2005) action research model as its primary methodological framework, combined with Lewin’s (1947) spiral conception of action research, to develop an action research model suitable for life education curriculum development. The researcher’s own teaching practice served as the research context, and two action research cycles were conducted through an iterative process of planning, action, observation, and reflection.

    The first cycle implemented a preliminary curriculum design, while the second cycle involved curriculum revisions based on student feedback and classroom observations, resulting in a learning process characterized by repeated cycles of “theory–creation–teaching practice.” The participants consisted of eight pre-service teachers from the teacher education center at University A in Taiwan, who participated in an 18-week life education course (110 minutes per week). Data sources included students’ weekly post-class reflection worksheets, expressive arts activity worksheets, semi-structured interviews, the instructor’s teaching journals, and classroom video recordings. Data analysis was conducted primarily through thematic analysis, following the procedures proposed by Braun and Clarke (2006), and aligned with the research purposes to generate curriculum principles and pedagogical guidelines. In addition, a narrative integrative analysis was employed to examine how participants constructed life meaning and experienced transformation through their creative works.
(This research will be completed in June.)

This study adopts the action research model proposed by Piggot-Irvine (2005) as its primary framework and integrates Lewin’s (1947) spiral model of cyclical inquiry. The research process consists of three major phases: conceptualization and planning, implementation and improvement, and evaluation and refinement. Within each phase, a micro-cycle of “planning–action–dialogue–reflection” is embedded. The study comprises two stages: a pilot study (first cycle) and a formal action research phase (at least one complete cycle). Through the pilot study, the overall feasibility of the curriculum framework and instructional procedures was preliminarily examined, the appropriateness of expressive arts media within the context of life education was evaluated, and initial data were collected to inform subsequent curriculum revision and formal data analysis. The core analytical approach of this study is thematic analysis. Thematic analysis focuses on identifying recurring patterns of meaning and conceptual structures within qualitative data, allowing for an in-depth understanding of how participants interpret their experiences, construct meaning, and develop understanding (Braun & Clarke, 2006). This method is particularly suitable for exploring highly contextualized educational phenomena such as learning processes, lived experiences, and reflections on values. Therefore, thematic analysis was employed as the primary strategy for examining pre-service teachers’ life experiences, emotional expressions, and reflections on their educational roles. Data analysis was conducted through repeated and iterative readings of multiple data sources, including students’ reflective learning worksheets, expressive arts activity worksheets, verbatim transcripts of semi-structured interviews, the instructor’s reflective journals, and classroom video recordings. Initial coding was first generated across the dataset, after which conceptually similar codes were clustered to form preliminary themes with coherent meaning structures. These themes were continuously reviewed in relation to the research purposes, and triangulated across different data sources to examine their consistency and distinctiveness. The themes were then refined and revised in dialogue with the theoretical framework, followed by interpretive analysis and narrative articulation of the final thematic findings.

This study is expected to construct a theoretically grounded and practically feasible model of an expressive arts–oriented life education curriculum, clearly articulating its core educational philosophy, pedagogical principles, and curricular structure. Specifically, the study aims to synthesize the key principles underpinning expressive arts life education, including learning processes centered on lived experience and narrative, as well as the educational positioning of art as a medium for meaning exploration. At the level of instructional design, the study further seeks to develop a replicable and explicable curriculum framework that demonstrates how expressive arts activities can be organically integrated with major life themes, such as self-identity, value clarification, suffering and hope, and life purpose. This framework is expected to culminate in a pedagogical model that combines theoretical grounding, artistic creation, reflective dialogue, and meaning integration, thereby offering a practical reference for future teacher education programs and addressing the limitations of existing curricula that overemphasize cognitive knowledge. At the level of learning processes, this study is expected to illuminate the dynamic trajectories through which preservice teachers develop awareness, reflection, and integration of life meaning while participating in an expressive arts–oriented life education curriculum. The findings are anticipated to demonstrate how participants externalize their inner experiences through artistic creation and, through visual and dialogical processes, gradually construct new understandings of the self. In particular, the study is expected to reveal a developmental pattern in which preservice teachers move from abstract discussions of life to embodied and experiential engagement, from externally imposed values to internally clarified meanings, from emotional expression to existential reflection, and from fragmented experiences to more coherent life narratives and emerging images of themselves as educators. This process-based understanding contributes to a deeper conceptualization of expressive arts as a pedagogical pathway for facilitating meaning making and identity formation in teacher education.

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