Rod Gerber

Phenomenography: A Qualitative Research Approach for Exploring Understanding in Health Care

Phenomenography is a little-known qualitative research approach that has potential for health care research, particularly when people’s understanding of their experience is the goal. Phenomenography is explained as a qualitative, nondualistic research approach that identifies and retains the discourse of research participants. This article seeks to present the major assumptions associated with phenomenographic research. An example of the way in which research outcomes are presented is included to emphasize its distinctiveness. It is noted that phenomenography has potential in the area of qualitative health research and will benefit from ongoing development and application.

How Do Workers Learn in Their Work

It is often assumed by management in different workplaces that the people who work there acquire their training before they take up a job or that they are trained in their job. Learning is a lifelong process that should be embraced by all workers. Increasing interest is being placed on companies as learning organisations in which the employees collectively contribute to the improvement of the workplace enterprise. However, modest attention has been paid to the ways by which people learn in their work. This article indicates, based on considerable worksite research, that how people learn in their work is a complex process characterised by a range of variations. Management in different worksites needs to understand the diversity of approaches by workers to learning in their jobs and offer opportunities for such activities to be continuous, reflective, individualised and/or collective. A more effective workforce will result if the workers can maximise learning in their work.

The concept of common sense in workplace learning and experience

Anecdotal evidence abounds of people in workplaces who use common sense in their work practices. Until now, the idea of common sense being a key concept in workplace learning and practice has not been valued too highly. Attempts have been made in psychological and philosophical literature to understand how common sense knowledge differs from theoretical knowledge. This study represents an initial attempt to use people’s experience in workplaces to understand how they see common sense as an important element of workplace learning. Using a phenomenographic research approach, it was revealed that people held seven different understandings of common sense in workplace experiences. For them, common sense was experienced as: a gut feeling, an innate ability, knowing how, learning, using others, demonstrable cognitive abilities, and personal attributes. These variations offer a broader approach to thinking about common sense in work practices.

Clerical‐Administrative Workers’ Conceptions of Competence in their Jobs

ABSTRACT The growing number of government‐sourced reports on improving economic performance of the nation through a carefully‐orchestrated National Training Reform Agenda have used the concept of competence as a central plank in their philosophy. All of these reports draw on a rationalistic perspective of competence that is built around designated behavioural outcomes. These outcomes are established in a dualistic way. An alternative approach is to use a humanistic approach to competence in which the concept of competence is explained in terms of workers’ experiences of competence within their workplaces. A study is reported here of working with 52 people in the clerical‐administrative industry in order to establish their conceptions of competence in clerical‐administrative workers. A phemenographic analysis was conducted on the written statements that were prepared by these participants. This non‐dualistic investigation revealed five qualitatively different conceptions of competence in clerical‐administr...

Hong Kong students' perceptions of graphs, charts and maps

Abstract This study is part of a cross‐cultural investigation that was initiated in Sweden followed by studies in Australia and Singapore. This paper shows how a phenomenographic approach may be used to reveal the qualitatively different ways in which 40 students in Hong Kong primary and secondary schools experience and understand the phenomenon of graphic representations of quantitative data. An outcome space depicting four variations of the childrens understanding are revealed.

Population Health, Environment and Economic Development

There are fundamental links between population health, environment and economic development. The ultimate goal of economic development is to improve the quality of human life and increase peoples longevity. This goal cannot be achieved without a clean and prosperous Earth. There has been increasing evidence showing that the expansion of economic activities can have significant impacts on the environment and can cause large-scale and sometimes irreversible environmental changes. It is beyond reasonable doubt that these changes will have serious public health consequences. How to tackle these issues is a unprecedented challenge to scientists and policy-makers.

Learning in Small Business Enterprises

Each small business is a different enterprise even though its goal is to operate profitably. What is distinctive for these enterprises is their scale of operation and distinctive culture in which they operate. To understand how people in small businesses learn one has to consider how learning in one’s work is a part of lifelong education; how people learn in their work; and how small businesses can be considered as learning organisations. To do this, a sociocultural approach to learning in small businesses is promoted in which the relationships between the small business workers and their work are considered.

Asian Migrant Adolescents' Experience of Wayfinding in Using a Map

Abstract Cross-cultural studies in wayfinding have not been a focus for researchers. Although there has been extensive research into different aspects of wayfinding, mainly in Western cultural settings, virtually all of this research has been monocultural. The study reported, here, commences the investigations of cross-cultural studies in wayfinding by working with a group of 14 adolescents who had recently settled in Australia from Asian and Pacific countries. These students had lived for less than two years in Australia and for them English was their second or third language. The purpose of the study was to investigate how they used a large scale local map to find their own way by walking approximately two to three kilometers from a suburban post office to their school in its natural setting. Each student was shadowed by a researcher as they found their way back to school and notes were taken to record their behavioural performance. At the conclusion of their walk, the students were interviewed for thei...