Phenomenography

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I’d never heard of this methodology before, but found this as I was searching to clarify my research proposal. The more I read about ethnography, the more I realized it wasn’t a perfect fit for my research questions. The more I reviewed information about phenomenology, the more I understood and discovered that it wasn’t exactly right for my research questions.

Then came an AHA moment, one that I’d read about but hadn’t experienced – it’s really the questions that drive the methodology, and finding the right methodology is important. From the methodology, the methods will emerge, so getting it right is important. But getting it right is tougher than it appears. There are lots of methodologies available! There are variations and nuances in methodologies that shift how they are applied in research contexts. The steps and actions used to define a methodology aren’t always explicit or shared. Reading deeply and researching extensively is critical in order to understand how to define the chosen methodology and how others have applied it to research projects.

With that being said, I knew ethnography, digital ethnography, autoethnography, phenomenology, or grounded constructivist theory were not going to be the right fit for my research proposal. At one point I was even questioning whether social network analysis needed to be a component of the methods used for data collection. I got lost in the search for something that fit.

Then I remembered reading Chrissi Nerantzi’s PhD thesis and searched her paper for a description of the methodology she used. It was right there! A comparison of phenomenology and phenomenography. I used this to trigger a deeper search into phenomenography and located a rich set of resources and research that applied this methodology. I read and scanned to develop a deeper understanding before realizing that this would be a better fit for my research proposal than any of the previous methodologies mentioned. Here’s some of the key articles I’ve discovered, and some my ‘why’ for my current research plan.

  • Akerlind, G. (2008). A phenomenographic approach to developing academics’ understanding of the nature of teaching and learning. Teaching in Higher Education, 13(6), 633-644.
  • Akerlind, G. (2018). What future for phenomenographic research? On continuity and development in the phenomenography and variation theory research tradition. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 62(6), 949-958.
  • Brown, K., Shephard, K., Warren, D., Hesson, G., & Fleming, J. (2016). Using phenomenography to build an understanding of how university people conceptualize their community-engaged activities. Higher Education Research & Development, 35(4), 643-657.
  • Forster, M. (2016). Phenomenography: A methodology for information literacy research. Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, 48(4), 353-362.
  • Marton, F. (1981). Phenomenography – describing conceptions of the world around us. Instructional Science, 10, 177-200.
  • Nerantzi, C. (2018). Thesis live and open to all to read. (blogpost). Retrieved from https://chrissinerantzi.wordpress.com/2018/01/16/thesis-now-live-in-full-and-open-to-all-to-read/ 
  • Nerantzi, C. (2018, September 24). There is life after the PhD! At least for a phenomenographer. (webinar). Retrieved from http://go-gn.net/webinars/webinar-there-is-life-after-the-phd-at-least-for-a-phenomenographer/
  • Salaz, A., Johnston, N., & Pickles, C. (2018). Faculty members who teach online: A phenomenographic typology of open access experiences. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 44, 125-132.

Why use phenomenography?

  • “From a phenomenographic perspective, different conceptions of teaching are seen as representing different breadths of awareness of the phenomenon of teaching, constituted as an experiential relationship between the teacher and the phenomenon” (Akerlind, 2005, p. 634)

  • From a phenomenographic perspective, different conceptions are seen as structurally related in a hierarchy of inclusiveness (e.g. Akerlind 2004; Dall’Alba 1991; Martin and Balla 1991; Prosser and Trigwell 1999; Wood 2000).” Akerlind, 2005, p. 635.

  • “Phenomenography argues that individuals experience the world differently because experience is always partial. At any one point in time and context, people discern and experience different aspects of any phenomenon to different degrees. Thus, different ways of experiencing a phenomenon may be understood in terms of which aspects of the phenomenon are discerned, and not discerned, in people’s awareness of it. Awareness of an aspect is indicated by the perception of the potential for variation in that aspect; lack of awareness is indicated by an implicit, taken-for-granted assumption of uniformity in that aspect of the phenomenon (Marton and Booth 1997).” Akerlind, 2005, pg. 635.

  • “From a phenomenographic perspective, less sophisticated conceptions are regarded not so much as wrong, but as incomplete, lacking awareness of key aspects of the phenomenon that are focal in more sophisticated conceptions.” Akerlind, 2005, p. 637.

  • “Phenomenographic approaches aim to produce insights into collective human experience (Åkerlind, 2012). The growing popularity of phenomenography in higher education research reflects the approach’s focus on how differing conceptualisations of phenomena are situated within and related to a given context (Entwistle, 1997).” Brown, Shephard, Warren, Hesson, & Fleming, 2016, p. 645.

I’ll read and explore more, but for now, I think this methodology best addresses the questions of my research and will frame the methods for collecting the data required to answer the questions.