Central to understanding phenomenography is appreciating how the findings may apply in teaching. Teaching and learning research to date has found that ways of experiencing something are essential to what learning takes place (Shulman, 1986). Marton & Booth (1997) contend that qualitatively changed ways of experiencing something is the most advanced form of learning. If we can describe learning as coming to experience something in a changed way, we should also acknowledge that experiencing something must require the ability to discern this new way of seeing the experience. Discernment then, is a significant attribute of learning (Runesson, 1999).
In order to discern a difference, however, we must have experienced a variation from our previous experience.
Segment below taken directly from
- Edwards, Sylvia L. (2007) Phenomenography : “Follow the yellow brick road!”. In Lipu, Suzanne, Williamson, Kristy, & Lloyd, Annemaree (Eds.)Exploring Methods in Information Literacy Research. Centre for Information Studies, Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga, NSW, pp. 87-110.
Let me bring this back to a simple example. A friend of mine, many years ago, suspected her three-year-old son was deaf, as he did not talk, he never reacted to noises, and he did not appear to hear when he was spoken too. Cutting the long story short, the child was eventually operated on to insert grommets in his ears to clear years of blockage. After the young boy woke in recovery, he sat up in bed with a very puzzled look on his face. His eyes darted around the room a little, and then he put his hands up to cover either ear. He sat there covering his ears, and then uncovering them, and his eyes grew wider! The boy experienced something new; for the first time in his young life he could hear things he had never heard before.
Prior to this day, to this boy, everything in the world was quiet, and he never experienced a variation in sound. He probably had no concept of what the word “sound” meant, nor for that matter, what the words “quiet” or “noisy” meant either. In those first few post-operative hours, the focus of his experience was to cover and uncover his ears. His central focus was on his hands and his ears, and in whatever way he then reasoned, his thinking focus would have been – “I can hear”.
At the same time he discovered sound he found himself with a very steep learning curve. Over the next few weeks, his central focus gradually, and probably more than once, changed. Once shown sound, he began to perceive differences in the sound he heard. He learnt to distinguish between quiet, noisy, or loud. He began to notice music, and animal noises; but the biggest thing to perceive, and eventually learn to focus on, was language. He had to learn to distinguish the different tones and phonetics of speech, and how these tonal changes meant different words, or even different moods, on the part of the person speaking. He had to learn to distinguish between sounds and thereby recognise language and other social skills he had never known before. He then, and only then, could learn to talk himself.
This boy experienced a variation and discerned a difference in what he had previously experienced. He also experienced over those first few weeks and months a series of different elements or aspects to focus on. The boy slowly learnt to speak, and to catch up on the years he had missed in language development due to deafness. He commenced school a year later than most children, which gave him the time he needed to develop the language and social skills he required for school. (This is a true story. The story has been used with the permission of the ‘boy’ and his parents.)
What does all this mean to you as the reader? Variation is the primary factor that is needed for discernment, which in turn will lead to learning (Bowden & Marton, 1998). In the above example, the boy noticed that sound had levels and tones. He also noticed that sometimes these are background sounds and other times they were sounds carrying language. He simultaneously discerned other aspects of this experience (or phenomenon) against all the possible variations in the experience. He also changed his central focus throughout his experiences, and each of these experiences would show us a series of categories with a central focus that is essentially different in each experience. If we were studying these experiences as they happened, we could use his experiences to understand learning to speak, and learning to hear, and so forth. We could use them to identify the variation in the experience of the phenomenon of learning to hear, or the phenomenon of learning to speak. From this example, we can see that to discern a difference then it is necessary to experience the variation from a previous experience (Runesson, 1999).
Variation, therefore, is a primary factor in encouraging student learning, but in order to understand what variations to use in the classroom to encourage student learning, it is first necessary to understand the varying ways of experiencing something, in this case, information searching. Phenomenography aims to uncover the variations in an experience, and describes these variations as a finite set of categories. These categories reveal the space of the variation, or, the varying ways of seeing information searching. Having found the variations, we can use them to identify ways to encourage students to discern another aspect of the information searching experience, an aspect they have previously not discerned. We can structure the learning environment to ensure students experience the variations of the information searching experience. By doing so, we may encourage learning.
For further information on this theory please consult any of the following:
Variation Theory Resources
- Edwards, Sylvia L. (2007) Phenomenography : “Follow the yellow brick road!”. In Lipu, Suzanne, Williamson, Kristy, & Lloyd, Annemaree (Eds.)Exploring Methods in Information Literacy Research. Centre for Information Studies, Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga, NSW, pp. 87-110.
- Marton, F. (1999, August 24-28, 1999). Variatio est mater studiorum. Paper presented at the 8th European Conference for Research on Learning and Instruction, Advancing Learning Communities In The New Millennium”, Göteborg, Sweden.
- Marton, F., & Fai, P. M. (1999, August 24-28, 1999). Two faces of variation. Paper presented at the 8th European Conference for Learning and Instruction, Goteborg, Sweden.
- Runesson, U. (1999, August 24-28, 1999). Teaching as constituting a space of variation. Paper presented at the 8th EARLI Conference, Goteborg, Sweden.
Also quoted above:
- Marton, F. & Booth, S. (1997). Learning and Awareness. Mahwah, N.J.: L. Erlbaum Associates.
- Shulman, L. (1986). Paradigms and research programs in the study of teaching: a contemporary perspective. In M. Wittrock (Ed.), Handbook of Research on Teaching. New York: MacMillan.
Please Note: This material is Copyright to the author and the publishers. Extract Source: Edwards, Sylvia L. (2006) Panning for gold: understanding students information searching experiences. In Transforming IT Education: Promoting a Culture of Excellence. Brisbane: Faculty of Information, QUT.