The phenomenography tradition in the study of classroom teaching

ABSTRACT

Phenomenography is internationally well-known for its use in studying learning and teaching in educational settings. This paper begins with the discussion of two approaches reported in the literature to study classroom teaching in the phenomenography tradition. The paper goes on to put forward a third approach that is in essence to return to the original idea of phenomenography and use observation of teaching activities for identifying the qualitatively different ways of seeing the object of learning. Observational data are collected and analysed by categorizing the teaching activities according to the ways of seeing that emerge from the data. This approach has been developed from a number of our projects on learning to teach Chinese. In this paper, the focus of the discussion is on the differences in the methodological assumptions underlying the three approaches to study teaching in the phenomenography tradition.     

Philosophical and methodological beliefs of instructional design faculty and professionals

The purpose of this research was to probe the philosophical beliefs of instructional designers using sound philosophical constructs and quantitative data collection and analysis. We investigated the philosophical and methodological beliefs of instructional designers, including 152 instructional design faculty members and 118 non-faculty professionals. We used the Philosophy of Social Science Inventory, a 52-item questionnaire, to measure 20 beliefs within four categories. We probed four ontological beliefs (ontological realism, ontological relativism, physicalism, and idealism); five epistemological beliefs (epistemological relativism, fallibilism, epistemological objectivity, rationalism, and empiricism); three axiological beliefs (ethical realism, ethical relativism, and valueneutrality in research); and eight methodological beliefs (nomothetic, idiographic and critical methods, scientific naturalism, humanism, and quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods). Our research questions included (a) What are the predominant philosophical and methodological beliefs of instructional designers? (b) Do instructional design faculty and non-faculty instructional designers, identifying with different research methodologies, hold different sets of philosophical beliefs? and (c) What relationships exist between philosophical beliefs and age, gender, ethnicity, level of education, and/or years of service? Overall, the philosophical profile of instructional designers can reasonably be described as pragmatic. Belief characterizations of methodological subgroups (e.g., those identifying with qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methods research) generally supported our hypotheses. Although demographic variables (except gender) were not singularly important, our analyses suggest that a combination of ethnicity, gender, research preference, and level of education can be used to predict philosophical and methodological beliefs.     

对教育管理学研究对象的反思

对于教育管理学的研究对象的反思可以推动一个教育管理学学科的发展。教育管理学在学科性质上属于教育学的一个下属学科。研究对象并不是一个本体论意义上的概念,而是一个认识论的概念。研究对象是理论与现实相互作用的结果,它是生成的、被建构的。因而,教育管理的研究对象不一定全是教育管理现象。教育管理学的研究对象应为教育管理现象、议题与问题。     

Where's the Competence in Competence-based Education and Training?

This paper notes the apparent ineffectiveness of the critical response to competence-based education and training (CBET) and suggests that this results from a failure to correctly isolate CBET's unique, identifying features. It is argued that the prevailing tendency to identify CBET with 'competence' is fundamentally mistaken and that the competence approach is more properly characterised in terms of its philosophically naïve methodological strategy. It is suggested that this strategy is based upon untenable assumptions relating to the semantic status of statements of outcome and the epistemological and ontological constructs to which such statements are intended to correspond.     

What Future for Phenomenographic Research? On Continuity and Development in the Phenomenography and Variation Theory Research Tradition

Volume 60(3) of the Scandanavian Journal of Educational Research is a special issue on current trends in the phenomenography and variation theory research tradition. In the introduction to the special issue, Rovio-Johansson and Ingerman look towards the potential theoretical and methodological future of phenomenography and pose two questions: “Is phenomenography complete and finalised with no further development necessary?” and “Is phenomenography relatively insignificant in the future development of the tradition as it has been transcended by variation theory?” The aim of this paper is to address these two questions, and in the process elaborate the relationship between phenomenography and variation theory in educational research.     

Some reflections on the links between teacher education and peace education: Interrogating the ontology of normative epistemological premises

This paper provides a critique of the essentialized assumptions about identity, culture and education that are found in contemporary peace education literature and explores the implications that these assumptions have for teacher education in conflict and post-conflict societies. The authors suggest that there is a need to move away from the epistemological primacy of these assumptions toward a critical ontological, contextualized and historicized approach. The authors propose that teachers need to be educated to become ‘critical design experts’.     

The Non‐theoretical View on Educational Theory: Scientific,Epistemological and Methodological Assumptions

This article examines the underlying problems of one particular perspective in educational theory that has recently gained momentum: the Wilfred Carr approach, which puts forward the premise that there is no theory in educational research and, consequently, it is a form of practice. The article highlights the scientific, epistemological and methodological assumptions inherent in such a view. The argument is developed as follows: first, it expounds what Carr understands by the methodology of action research and educational theory, setting out his distinctive view. Secondly, it explains that both Carr's underlying methodology, as well as his theoretical alternative, are based on a particular perspective on Social Science. Thirdly, it reveals Carr's epistemological assumptions and the resultant educational consequences.     

Career counselling for the 21st Century -- integrating theory and practice

This article describes the development of a model of career counselling that will be responsive to the nature of career in the 21st Century. It begins by providing a commentary on the relationship between theory and the practice of career counselling, from the early 1900's to the present day. Drawing from contemporary research and theorizing, the article argues for an integrated approach to theory and practice. A framework that integrates developmental perspectives on career learning and client-centred career counselling is proposed. The ontological, epistemological and methodological characteristics of the framework are considered. The development of a constructivist, hermeneutic model of career counselling is then described and demonstrated.     

Enriching the Theoretical Horizons of Phenomenography,Variation Theory and Learning Studies

The aim of this article is to introduce some theoretical frameworks which may develop the research going on within phenomenography and variation theory. Central concepts from the epistemological and cognitive theories of Charles S. Peirce, Niklas Luhmann and Margaret Boden are presented and their implications for phenomenography and variation theory are discussed. Peirce's concept of the semiotic triad clarifies the interrelations of conceptions, their linguistic expressions and their meanings or referents. Luhmann's concepts of primary and secondary distinctions point out an implicit hierarchy of dimensions of variation. Boden's notion of conceptual spaces as grounds for explorative and transformative creativity points to the relevance and value of becoming familiar with the conceptional spaces of the outcomes of phenomenographic studies. Finally, I point to the possibility of including the notion of a “hidden curriculum” of the discipline as an implicit dimension of variation in classroom studies based on variation theory.     

An awareness of epistemological assumptions: the case of gender studies

Perceptions of differences in the participation and achievement of girls and boys in school science and mathematics have given rise to considerable curriculum research and professional development. This research, and the practices arising from it, has aimed at increasing the participation of girls in ‘non‐traditional’ school subjects, with the ultimate goal of enhancing girls’ post‐school options. Mathematics and science have been seen as critical in this respect, particularly the higher levels of mathematics and the physical sciences.

This research and professional development have contributed to our understanding of the issues and have no doubt affected the post‐school options of some girls. However, there is also dissatisfaction at the lack of significant change that has flowed from this work. A more critical analysis is now emerging, leading to a deeper questioning of the assumptions that underlie research and development in the field. Ironically, at the same time there are reports that funding for research into aspects of gender issues is now taking an even lower profile than in recent years (Tisdall 1992).

This paper has emerged from debates relating to gender issues from the perspective of two teachers, one of science and the other of mathematics. The debates were precipitated by a move from work as school teachers to work in higher education, where there is an explicitly stated responsibility for research as well as teaching. The change in our labour served to highlight personal questions about the legitimation of different accounts of education in research, science and mathematics education and gender issues. It was in the process of grappling with the apparent plethora of research methods that we began to look at the epistemological assumptions of research into gender issues in science and mathematics education.

For us then, there are three major interrelated and overlapping areas of concern. One is related to the epistemological assumptions that pervade science and mathematics in schools. The second also concerns epistemological assumptions, those relating to educational research, particularly into gender issues. The third raises the ontological question of the conceptualization of gender within the research. We needed a conceptual framework to enable us to critique the normalization of the debates and uncover the problematics within each of these three concerns. At the same time, the framework had to allow an examination of the interrelatedness and continuities between them. It was the normalization and apparent consensus surrounding these issues that was disturbing for us. This we recognized as a depoliticization of social institutions which are essentially political. It was against this background, and in acknowledgement of some feminist critiques (Fraser 1989), that we use a framework developed by Habermas (1972), which recognizes the political dynamic of epistemological positions, and allows us to make explicit the politics of educational research.

Our starting point, in this paper, is Habermas's work. We outline the three ‘knowledge‐constitutive’ interests of this schema, and describe their implications for education. We then explore the dominant perspective within science and mathematics education. Having described this context, we examine the gender research with particular attention to the conceptualization of gender. With reference to Habermas's framework the epistemological and ontological assumptions of this research are explored, and the possibilities and limitations are discussed. This is used to examine the epistemological basis of different research methodologies.

We contend that there is a relationship between the scientific paradigm, the organization of education and the framing of research. Further this relationship has constituted the field of research about gender and science and mathematics and limited its potential for explanation.     

方法论哲学与实践思维

哲学形态学是近年来学界讨论的一个热点问题。古代哲学主要是本体论形态,与此相适应确立的主要是单纯客体性思维。近代哲学主要是认识论形态,与此相适应形成的主要是单纯主体性思维。当代哲学之所以以方法论为主要形态,这是由当代人们的实践方式及哲学发展的内在逻辑决定的。随着人类实践的拓展,学科分化的加剧,现实生活给哲学提出的迫切问题是探讨为人的实践活动所分化了的主体怎样才能正确地把握客体,在新的基础上达到主客体的统一。哲学的方法论功能,集中表现在它主要是为人们提供思维方式的科学。马克思主义哲学对人类思维做出的重大贡献就是为人们提供了一种从实践观点出发的、具有崭新特质的思维方式———“实践思维”,它既突破了以往思维方式的局限性,又吸收了单纯客体性思维、单纯主体性思维的合理性,使人类思维达到了前所未有的水平。     

试论斯莱特的“稳定性质簇说”

回应哈金的“消去主义”,是当代自然种类理论研究的一个难题。克里普克通过哲学的语义分析导出一种“类本质主义”,引领出一个集中于解释分类自然性的自然种类理论研究趋势。由“类本质主义”到“稳定性质簇说”,相关探讨接受语言哲学“遵从世界”的思维,并随之接受一个“人-自然”式的二元世界结构预设。“稳定性质簇说”基于“集团稳定性”解释自然种类,该解释具有一定的优势,但是它主要从认识论的角度综合“自我平衡性质簇说”和“非规则的稳定性”,没有质疑已有研究的本体论基础,因此在本体论取向方面犹豫不决。“稳定性质簇说”重视本体论实践,但是需要一种本体论观念的修正。综合关于自然种类的哲学语义学、认识论和形而上学研究,有可能给出对于哈金“消去主义”的进一步回应。     

A postdigital paradigm in literary studies

ABSTRACT

The term postdigital has in recent years been applied across a broad range of disciplines, including literary studies, to describe an era in which digital media and technologies have become the dominant, if not hegemonic, aesthetic, social, epistemological and ontological paradigm. However, the full effects on literary studies of the new modes of literary production and consumption, the nascent reading practices and literary interfaces, and the inscrutable knowledge infrastructures that have emerged in this postdigital era remain unexamined.

This article articulates a possible framework for understanding the literary object in this postdigital era, and in the twenty-first-century classroom. It extends scholarship in critical posthumanism and the digital humanities into the field of literary studies to describe how the human reader is entangled in complex, mutable networks of socio-material and technical relations that foreground the reading experience. Unpacking the current print-based assumptions of literary studies, it considers how the discipline might broaden and deepen its own theoretical, methodological and pedagogical approaches to the postdigital literary object. Finally, turning toward a critique of the signature pedagogy of literary studies, close reading, it speculates on the impact of these developments on the present and future of postdigital literary pedagogy.     

Phenomenography — a “good‐for‐nothing brother” of phenomenology? Outline of an analysis

This article will argue that five different ways of doing phenomenography can be found amongst the works of Gothenburg phenomenographers: Discursive, Experimental, Naturalistic, Hermeneutic and Phenomenological. Commenting on an earlier version of phenomenography, Jacob Needleman stated that it was “a ‘good‐for‐nothing’ brother of phenomenology”. We will argue that it is not. It is productive research, even if at times the degree of methodological reflection applied by phenomenographers to their work is found wanting. Two of five forms of Gothenburg phenomenography can be developed by recourse to phenomenology.     

Requisite Variety: The problem with generic guidelines for diverse genres of inquiry

In response to an invitation to explore the idea that potential guidelines be considered for qualitative inquiry in environmental education research, this article argues that prerequisite understanding of the nature and scope of qualitative inquiry required for such a task will reveal the problem inherent in it. Understanding the diverse complexities, the requisite variety, of qualitative inquiry not only challenges the methodological uniformity necessitated by this task philosophically; it unmasks the epistemological and ontological limits of such an endeavor, however well intentioned.     

What Are We Looking For?—Pro Critical Realism in Text Interpretation

A visible role in the theoretical discourses on education has been played in the last couple of decades by the constructivist epistemologies, which have questioned the basic assumptions of realist epistemologies. The increased popularity of interpretative approaches especially has put the realist epistemologies on the defensive. Basing itself on critical realism, this article discusses the ontological and epistemological commitments of educational research and its consequences for text interpretation. The article defends ontological realism and the semantic conception of truth against radical constructivist ontology and the epistemic conceptions of truth.     

Young People's Conceptions of Environment: A phenomenographic analysis

Environmental education in schools is an important strategy in achieving environmental improvement. However, it needs to be based on children's understandings of environment rather than on assumptions of what children know and believe. This paper reports on a research project where school children's answers to a question 'I think the term/word environment means ' were analysed using the qualitative research method of phenomenography. Six distinct conceptions were isolated, ranging from the least sophisticated--environment as a place--to the most inclusive and expansive--environment and people in a relationship of mutual sustainability. An important qualitative difference was found between conceptions that treat the environment as an object and relational conceptions. The implications of these findings for environmental education are discussed.     

Diffraction or reflection? Sketching the contours of two methodologies in educational research

Internationally, an interest is emerging in a growing body of work on what has become known as ‘diffractive methodologies’ drawing attention to ontological aspects of research. Diffractive methodologies have largely been developed in response to a dissatisfaction with practices of ‘reflexivity’, which are seen to be grounded in a representational paradigm and the epistemological aspects of research. While work on ‘reflexivity’ and ‘critical reflection’ has over the years become predominant in educational and social science research methodology literature, our reading indicates that there is still important conceptual work to be done putting these two practices – reflection and diffraction – in conversation with each other and exploring their continuities and breaks as well as examining the consequences for research methodologies in education. This article raises important questions about how the concepts of diffraction and reflection are defined and understood and discusses the methodological implications for educational research.     

Participatory action research and the struggle for legitimation

There is little reason why educational research in Australia should be progressive and highly developed given that its history and direction are subject to the economic and political determinants of an increasingly conservative and uncertain world. Whether or not educational research is an entirely derivative field or a semi-distinctive social science, is essentially qualitative or quantitative in character, desires knowledge that is vaguely accurate or accurately vague, seeks epistemological or ontological explanation, remains to be seen as history works itself out. It cannot be considered a neutral endeavour and demands that researchers identify a political perspective or worldview from which new knowledge is described and interpreted. In developing an approach to participatory action research, in particular from working with Indigenous communities, a number of challenges and knowledges have emerged that are described in this paper and which embrace community partnership, two-way enquiry learning and the educational public sphere. Participatory action research as outlined here may be the only framework appropriate for democratic community research although it is not as yet legitimated within the pantheon of available methodologies and philosophies.     

论心理学中科学主义和人文主义对立的哲学根源

以实证主义为代表的科学主义哲学和以现象学、存在主义、意志主义、释义学为代表的人文主义哲学对心理学的本体论、认识论、方法论预设的形成以及理论建构方式均有深刻的影响