Types of phenomenographic practice 63

The approach adopted within phenomenography is in some ways similar to that of phenomenology, which strives to:

“Come to a deeper understanding of what persons go through as they conduct their day-to-day life in the language of everyday life” (Hultgren, 1989, p. 50).

Indeed some researchers have argued that phenomenography is the same as phenomenology (Gibbs, Morgan, & Taylor, 1982; McKeachie, 1984; Morgan, 1984; Prosser, 1993; Taylor, 1983). Marton (1986, 1988) concedes that both methodologies were indeed relational, experiential, content-oriented, and qualitative. However certain distinctions can be asserted. For example phenomenology tends to search for common themes of shared experiences amongst a group of individuals within a phenomenon (Van Manen, 1990). Further, Patton (2002) contends that phenomenology is concerned with subjective experience and how that experience becomes part of a person’s reality. Phenomenography, by contrast, attempts to identify the variance of individuals within the same phenomenon (Marton, 1989). Within the present thesis the individual variance with regard to the phenomenon of feedback was explored and therefore this resides more comfortably within phenomenography. Further, Marton (1981) highlighted that phenomenographers dealt with "both the conceptual and the experiential, as well with what is thought of as that which is lived" (p. 181). It is for this reason that researchers such as Marton (1981, 1986) identify phenomenography as an appropriate way of evaluating programs within higher education.

The comparison between phenomenography and ethnography has also been made within the literature. Francis (1993) has argued that interviewing within the phenomenography perspective is naive. Francis suggests that such naivety is born

through interviewing being classified as any form of interaction with another. Thus, as Eizenberg (1986) indicates ‘chats at the foot of the stairs’ or ‘over a beer’ are legitimate interview situations under this umbrella. This assumption could perhaps be traced back to the perceived similarity between phenomenography and ethnography; the general study of cultures, where data is collected through participant observation and researcher generated accounts of such observations (Säljö, 1987, 1988; Marland, 1989; Van Maanen, 1996). Richardson (1999) argues this could mean that researchers deduce that phenomenography is therefore a ‘relaxed form of anthropology’. As such the defence of the phenomenographic approach was to concede some similarities with ethnography but to emphasise that the foci of interest and theories of description are in fact distinctly different (Marton, 1988). Ethnography, by definition is an analysis of social process by virtue of in-depth personal involvement (Hammersley & Atkinson, 1995; Toren, 1996).

Richardson (1999) argues that to some degree phenomenography is similar by virtue of the fact that some researchers within educational fields select their participants out of convenience (i.e. they are located within the same institution). However, Richardson (1999) does concede that in general these researchers have not experienced the exact same situations as those students under investigation. Further the processing of participants’ responses differs too. Whilst, ethnographic data produces rich descriptions of people’s language, beliefs and behaviours from which conclusions can be drawn; the researcher can be seen to operate a certain amount of scepticism towards such data (Glesne, 2006). That said the emphasis on rich description within ethnography does bear some similarity to categories of description within phenomenography. Phenomenographers generally accept and report the participants’ responses at face value (Bligh, 1993). The focus therefore is exclusively upon the phenomenon being investigated. Such an argument infers that phenomenography in this regard is fundamentally different to ethnography. Somewhat conclusively, Dall’Alba (2000) indicates that whilst phenomenography, phenomenology and ethnography share comparable topographies; phenomenography maps the qualitatively different conceptions of individuals. The present research sought to map students’ qualitatively different assessment and

feedback experiences to further understand the phenomenon. This is exemplified in chapter five of this thesis.

Within the literature diverse incarnations and detractions from the original work of Marton and colleagues are also evident. According to Hasselgren & Beach (1997) five different types of phenomenographic practice are evident; (1) naturalistic; (2) phenomenological; (3) discursive; (4) experimental and (5) hermeneutic. A brief discussion of these five types of practice will now follow. Lybeck (1981) explains that naturalistic phenomenography is typified by the researcher having a more ‘hands off’ approach. The researcher collects data from real life situations without interfering or comprising the elements of such situations. The inference here is that a ‘natural’ situation is preserved in order to glean the most ‘natural’ representation of the situation. In contrast phenomenological phenomenography is characterised by the researcher striving to recognise a phenomenological aspect within their work. Typically researchers operating this method could be interested in developing a greater understanding of the interviewee’s inner thought processes (Neumann, 1997). Discursive phenomenography is perhaps described best as the simplest form of phenomenography (Hasselgren & Beach, 1997). Researchers operating this approach are concerned with drawing conceptions of the world in general. Experimental phenomenography is perhaps the most popular form adopted. This is seen within Marton’s (1975) early work where the qualitatively different ways of understanding the same phenomenon are reported. The final phenomenographic practice is hermeneutic, which as Linblad (1995) indicates is based upon deducing text which was not originally intended for phenomenographic research operating the whole/part method.

Study two within the present thesis was conducted in a similar manner to Marton’s (1975) early experimental phenomenographical work as qualitatively different ways of understanding the same phenomenon (feedback) were explored. Bowden (2000) has also suggested that the original ideas conceived by Marton et al in the 1970/80’s could be alternatively labelled as developmental phenomenography and

pure phenomenography. Developmental phenomenography is generally viewed within educational contexts. Bowden (2000) argues that it attempts to utilise different contexts to empower understanding of the phenomenon under investigation. By contrast pure phenomenography attempts to describe all of the ways people experience a phenomenon (Marton, 1986). What is clear here is that some of what Bowden is arguing reflects elements contained within discursive phenomenography (Hasselgren & Beach, 1997). Such debates within the literature lend support to those who champion the use of phenomenography as a viable research methodology. Certainly what such evidence suggests is that phenomenography is an adaptive method for use within many different research contexts. It therefore seems a prudent methodology to operate within the main study in the present thesis (study two).