Phenomenography and Variation Theory

Abstract

This paper introduces a new research tradition, phenomenography, which is very popular and well received in Europe, Australia as well as Hong Kong. The development of phenomenography can be divided into five different phases: (1) investigating students’ differences in learning; (2) studying variation in people’s ways of experiencing; (3) developing a framework to characterise people’s ways of experiencing; (4) applying the variation theory to describe and analyse classroom teaching; and (5) finally designing learning environments inspired by the variation theory to bring learning about. The first two stages belong to the traditional phenomenography, and focus mainly on the qualitatively different ways of experiencing a phenomenon, whilst the last three stages belong to the 'new' phenomenography, in which the emphasis is on the development of the variation theory to account for and develop a certain way of experiencing.

現象圖析學是一種目前盛行于歐洲、澳大利亞和香港的新的研究范式。現象圖析學的發展可以劃分為五個階段:(1)探討學生學習的差異;(2)研究人們經驗世界方式的差異;(3)形成解釋人們經驗世界方式的理論框架;(4)應用變易理論描述及分析課堂教學;(5)使用變易理論設計學習環境來促進學習的發生。前兩個階段屬于傳統現象圖析學范疇,主要研究人們經驗現象的質性不同的方式。后三個階段則屬于'新'現象圖析學范疇,強調用變易理論來解釋及促進經驗現象的特定方式。