Phenomenography in a more-than-human world - clarity, coherence and critical renewal

Abstract

Phenomenography is an interpretative research approach for investigating the “qualitatively different ways in which people experience, perceive, and understand various aspects of, and phenomena in the world around them” (Marton, 1986, p.31). In its short history of a few decades phenomenography accumulated a substantial body of literature. A few stand out as seminal works developing phenomenography knowledge. Historically, Marton and Booth (1997) was an unmatched reference work that set out the philosophical and theoretical foundations of phenomenography, elevating it from a set of qualitative research methods to a research approach, while concurrently laying out the foundations of the variation theory of learning as a pedagogy using phenomenographic outcomes for scaffolding students’ thinking and learning. [Excerpt]