Week 5: The phenomenology of 'approach to studying'

Ashworth, P. & Greasley, K. (2009)

Key points:

• the two traditions of approaches to studying literature are inadequate in the same way: the both focus on mental orientation (noesis) and neglect the person's view of the material to be learned (noema)
• the 'material to be learned' is not easily described, but is intrinsically related to the 'lifeworld' of the student
• an idiographic sensibility (i.e. realisation of the inescapability of the personal lifeworld) is necessary, both in educational research and education generally
• the world we act in, the world of our comportment is the subjective lifeworld, no other. There is no call to look inside for the idiographic. Introspection is not the methodology of phenomenology, description of lived experience is.
• A student's approach to learning is not simple but is idiographic, and entails the meaning of the particular instance of learning within the lifeworld of that individual.
• Student diversity in studying cannot be easily 'factored in' to pedagogy - an idiographic sensibility is required. This is so despite the undoubted inconvenience of such a pedagogy within the current mass higher education structures.
• Pedagogically, there is no escape from addressing idiosyncracy in facilitating learning. If so, the implications within mass higher education would be very great.

 

Key definitions:

• noesis: the manner in which studying is grasped / the mental orientation to studying
• noema: the subjective meaning of studying and of what is studied
• Idiographic sensibility: an awareness of the individuality of the lifeworld of the student (this is needed to obtain a fuller understanding of a person's approach to studying
• phenomenograhy: the process by which someone approaches learning 
• bracketing: the strict discounting of all reference to objective reality 

 

The phenomenography of approaches to studying

Saljo (1979) conducted qualitative research with university students. From their responses to the question 'What do you actually mean by learning?' Saljo identified five different conceptions of learing:

1. Learning is simply the increase of knowledge (surface)
2. Learning is memorising (surface)
3. Learning is the acquisition of facts, procedures etc, which can be retained and/or utilised in practice (surface)
4. Learning is abstraction of meaning. The learning material is the starting point for a construction on the part of the learner (deep)
5. Learning is an interpretive process aimed at understanding - learning as seeing something in a different way (Marton, Dall'Alba & Beaty, 1993) (deep). These authors also added a sixth conception:
6. Learning as entailing a change in the learner themselves (deep)

Marton et al. (1993) argued that student conceptions of learning would be closely aligned to the approach that they took to learning. 

Learning is relational because it involves a combination of two factors:

1. the 'how' - i.e. the activity of the student in learning
2. the 'what' - i.e. the nature of the thing to be learned

Learning is there fore a relation between the learner and the material to be learned (Ashworth & Greasley, 2009). However, phenomenography has been criticised for failing to accommodate 'life activities' - e.g. this material, that learning situation.

What is distinctive about phenomenologically-based empirical work is that it focus it the person's experience as such. All reference to objective reality is set aside - this is 'bracketing'. Reality is 'bracketed' and attention is turned to experience alone. All phenomenological investigation is exclusively concerned with the subjectivity of the individual (A&G, 2009).

A&G's question: is it possible for a researcher to set aside presuppositions and enter into the pure experience of the research participant?

A criticism of phenomenograpic and psychometric approaches to learning is that they don't take into consideration the student's awareness of the actual material to be learned (the 'noema'), with all its connotations for them personally. Phenomenography neglects that the meaning of the phenomenon comes from its embeddedness within the broad experience of the student - i.e. phenomenography detaches the person from their world (Ashworth & Lucas 1998, 2002).

Example: a dyslexic student views text as 'the enemy' and therefore avoids it wherever possible.

• text as an enemy = noema: an aspect of the intentional object of learning
• text avoidance = noesis: as aspect of the mental orientation to text

Error: you shouldn't distinguish between the 'object as it is intended' (appearance) and the 'object which is intended' (reality) (Willard, 1992). Heidegger (1927/1988) dismisses the distinction between noesis and noema because, although analytically separable, they are never actually apart in existence. He argues that:

• we understand ourselves and our existence by way of the activities we pursue and the things we take care of (phenomenology of intentionality)
• the world is inevitably subjective, "different in a certain way for each of us" 

A&G therefore argue that:

•  the phenomenological world (i.e. the world of experience as it appears for the person) should not be brought together with an assessment of the 'reality of the situation in a research design
• we remain in the phenomenological realm and find that the world through and through is a subjective one. The noesis must not be interpreted as 'on the side of the person' and the noema as 'on the side of the world'. We are already within the world - which is or subjective lifeworld. Our whole comportment relates to this world.
• the world is interesting in ways which are precisely my interests.
• intentionality is not simply 'all consciousness is consciousness of something' but rather 'all things of which I am conscious are structured in forms which reflect - or are - my orientations and concerns.

 

The 'fragments of the lifeworld'

Selfhood: what does the situation of learning mean for social identity, the person's sense of agency and their feeling of their own presence and voice in the situation?

Sociality: how does the situation affect relations with others?

Embodiment: How does the situation relate to feelings about their own body, including gender, disabilities and emotions?

Temporality: How is the sense of time, duration, biography entailed in approaches to learning?

Spatiality: How is the student's picture of the geography of the places they need to go to and act within affected by the situation? Frustrations? Possibilities?

Project: How does the situation relate to the student's ability to carry out the activities they are committed to and which they regard as central to their life? Regrets? Pride? What is the meaning of this material  for this learner?

Discourse: What sort of terms - educational, social, commercial, ethical etc - are employed to describe - and thence to live - the situation?