Shirley Booth

On Phenomenography, Learning and Teaching

Abstract Phenomenographic research has tackled questions concerning the variation in ways in which people experience the phenomena they meet in the world around them. The empirical work directly addressing educational issues has to a large extent focused on describing qualitatively different ways in which particular sorts of students understand a phenomenon, or experience some aspect of the world, which is central to their education, and setting the results into the educational context of interest. Learning is viewed as being a change in the ways in which one is capable of experiencing some aspect of the world and other research has been linked to attempts to bring about such changes by utilising certain approaches to teaching. This article will outline principles for teaching based, on the one hand, on the body of empirical phenomenographic research and, on the other hand, on an emerging picture of the nature of human awareness. The principles will first be drawn, explicated with the help of a number of ...

Making sense of Physics in the first year of study

We address the question ‘How do students make sense of Physics from the point of view of constituting physics knowledge?’. A phenomenographic study is described as a result of which we present six qualitatively different ways in which students experience the first year of Physics. Three of these are considered to be unproductive in terms of making sense of physics, while the other three increasingly support the formation of a well-grounded physics knowledge object. The variation is analysed in terms of the structure of experience, the nature of knowledge and an ethical aspect. Implications for practice are considered.

Physics group work in a phenomenographic perspective – learning dynamics as the experience of variation and relevance

In this paper, we analyse learning dynamics in the context of physics group work of the kind increasingly found in engineering education. We apply a phenomenographic perspective on learning, seeing the notion of variation as the basic mechanism of learning. Empirically, we base our analysis on data from first year engineering students discussing physics problems concerning force and friction while working in small groups of three or four. The discussions were captured on video and audio, and the subsequent analysis primarily relies on detailed transcriptions and the students’ notes. The results illustrate how students relate different parts of the whole learning object (Newtonian mechanics) to one another and create a variation with respect to the parts and/or the whole; how the presence and experience of variation complemented by an experience of relevance may result in identifiable learning; and how tutor interventions may have a favourable impact on the learning dynamics.

Academics' Strategies and Obstacles in Achieving Collaboration between Universities and SMEs

There is an ongoing debate both in the United States and Europe about the need to develop a broader view of scholarship and the different activities connected with it, including ‘service to the community’. This empirical study reveals that researchers who are engaged in collaboration with small and medium enterprises (SMEs) encounter many hindrances within the academic structure and obstacles due cultural differences that needs to be overcome. But it is also evident that they are creative and learn different strategies in accomplishing their goals and they also bring back useful experiences and knowledge from their cooperation into their research and teaching within the academic organization. We suggest that attention should be paid to the broader and more elaborate view of collaborative knowledge production that we present in the article if university structures are to provide better support for their academic staff to interact profitably with the community, and thereby create a ‘win-win situation’ for everyone involved.

Journals based on applications: An attempt to improve students' learning about composite materials

In a course on composite materials for fourth-year students at Chalmers University of Technology, students are required to write journals as a complement to the more traditional teaching approach. The journals comprise a series of reports relating the theory currently being treated to an application object, and are sent to the teacher by e-mail for comments. These give the students the opportunity to make use of the theoretical knowledge they meet in each section of the course by reflecting on how it is applicable to a real application. The goal is for better, more integrated understanding, in that, on the one hand, the students should understand the importance of each part of the course and, on the other hand, they should be able to relate the parts to one another, and to practical application. In this paper, we describe the goals and strategies of the change to teaching, we analyse the ways that students approach the journal writing task and we discuss ways in which the journals can improve the quality of student learning.

Internationalisation of higher education in a South African university: A phenomenographic study of students' conceptions

This paper concerns the internationalisation of higher education, and presents specifically the results of an empirical study of postgraduate students at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. The work uses a qualitative methodology – phenomenography – that aims to explore the qualitatively different ways in which a group of people experience a specific phenomenon, in this case internationalisation of higher education. Four qualitatively different ways of experiencing it are described, constituting the phenomenographic outcome space. The results are discussed in terms of a model that has been devised, grounded in Bernsteins concepts of domains of socialisation. The aim of the work is to inform and influence a holistic policy for internationalisation at the University by relating these experiences to the context of the university, thereby creating an enhanced teaching and learning environment.

Learning and teaching engineering mathematics for the knowledge society

This paper addresses the issue of teaching and learning engineering mathematics in order to support a future of life-long learning in the knowledge society, based on a form of understanding that goes beyond facts, theorems and algorithms. Drawing on three research studies, the importance is shown of students’ experience of reflection on study, integration of mathematics into other aspects of an educational programme and into the world at large, and autonomy as a learner. Attention is then moved to implications for the processes of teaching, in order to support such understanding as a capability that students take with them from the university to the workplace.

Learning and the variation in focus among physics students when using a computer simulation

This article presents a qualitative analysis of the essential characteristics of university students’ “focus of awareness” whilst engaged with learning physics related to the Bohr model with the aid of a computer simulation. The research is located within the phenomenographic research tradition, with empirical data comprising audio and video recordings of student discussions and interactions, supplemented by interviews. Analysis of this data resulted in descriptions of four qualitatively distinct focuses: Doing the Assignment, Observing the Presentation, Manipulating the Parameters and Exploring the Physics. The focuses are further elucidated in terms of students’ perceptions of learning and the nature of physics. It is concluded that the learning outcomes possible for the students are dependent on the focus that is adopted in the pedagogical situation. Implications for teaching physics using interactivetype simulations can be drawn through epistemological and meta-cognitive considerations of the kind of mindful interventions appropriate to a specific focus.

On the pedagogy of pharmacological communication: a study of final semester health science students.

BackgroundThere is a need to improve design in educational programmes for the health sciences in general and in pharmacology specifically. The objective of this study was to investigate and problematize pharmacological communication in educational programmes for the health sciences.MethodsAn interview study was carried out where final semester students from programmes for the medical, nursing and specialist nursing in primary health care professions were asked to discuss the pharmacological aspects of two written case descriptions of the kind they would meet in their everyday work. The study focused on the communication they envisaged taking place on the concerns the patients were voicing, in terms of two features: how communication would take place and what would be the content of the communication. A phenomenographic research approach was used.ResultsThe results are presented as outcome spaces, sets of categories that describe the variation of ways in which the students voiced their understanding of communication in the two case descriptions and showed the qualitatively distinct ways in which the features of communication were experienced.ConclusionsThe results offer a base of understanding the students’ perspectives on communication that they will take with them into their professional lives. We indicate that there is room for strengthening communication skills in the field of pharmacology, integrating them into programmes of education, by more widely implementing a problem-based, a case-oriented or role-playing pedagogy where final year students work across specialisations and there is a deliberate effort to evoke and assess advanced conceptions and skills.

Diversity in pre-service teachers' understandings of research

In this article we present findings from a small-scale qualitative study examining the understandings of research of a diverse group of 12 first-year Bachelor of Education (B.Ed) students in an urban, historically advantaged, higher education institution in South Africa. Our aim was to examine students’ understandings of research within the initial teacher training course in a context of national pressures to both increase diversity and throughput rates within these programmes, and to focus on integrating research as a means for making teaching a practice involving ongoing inquiry. Our findings pointed to differences in the nature and degree of students’ understandings of research. At one extreme within our sample, some students reflected enthusiasm for an inquiry orientation and were able to relate their research activity to both experiences of learning and possibilities for teaching. At the other extreme, our analysis revealed that some students understood research simply as an institutional requirement...