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| [ HERDSA ]
[ Proceedings Contents ] |
Mark Garner
Educational Services Unit, La Trobe University, Bendigo
Michael Prosser
Academic Development Unit, La Trobe University
Phenomenography is a research approach used to investigate the different ways in which people conceptualise phenomena in the world around them, as a means of studying thinking and learning. This paper proposes using phenomenography as a classroom teaching technique. The most consistent finding of phenomenographic research is that there are a varied but limited number of qualitatively different ways in which a concept can be understood. This means that in a classroom, lecturer and student may have quite different conceptions of the topic in hand. If this difference remains implicit, it is unlikely that teaching and learning will be effective. As a teaching technique phenomenography can make students aware of their own and others' conceptions of the same phenomenon. Examples are given from courses about communication, information systems and physics. In general, students' descriptions of their conception of the phenomenon of interest are displayed to the class. A class discussion then aims to categorise the descriptions and compare level of understanding. The paper highlights the benefits of this teaching technique which include: making students aware that there are different ways of conceptualising a phenomenon; encouraging students to compare conceptions, as a starting point for developing better levels of understanding; and indicating to the lecturer the level at which the learners are operating. These benefits can lead to improved teaching practices.
Phenomenographic perspectives, on the other hand, are based upon the idea that individuals are not constituted independently of the world in which they live. It does not see knowledge existing outside the individual, to be brought in as behaviouristic and information processor theories seemed to suggest, or that it is constructed inside the individual as the constructivist theories seem to suggest. It sees knowledge as relating individuals to the world. It does not treat the individual as a black box into which knowledge is poured, nor as an information processor in which knowledge is stored, but constitutes individuals' relationship with the world in terms of their experiences and awareness of the world. People experience the world in qualitatively different ways, many of which individuals are not aware. A phenomenographic perspective takes this qualitative variation as central, and sees learning as individuals becoming more aware of this variation, and, in the process, changing their experience of the world (Marton and Booth, In press).
While phenomenography is an approach to researching the variation in individuals' experiences of phenomena in the world in which they live, it does have underlying it, a set of principles upon which classroom teaching practices can be based Marton and Booth (In press). In the three cases reported below we have used these principles to design teaching activities aimed at promoting more efficient learning through bringing a closer educational awareness between the lecturer and students. More specifically our teaching activities were designed:
Booth (1992) investigated students' conceptions of computer programming. She found three conceptions of computer programming forming a hierarchy based on logical inclusiveness. The three conceptions were computer programming as a computer oriented activity, a problem oriented activity and product oriented activity. Product orientation logically includes the problem orientation and both include the computer orientation.
In the programming subjects already completed by the students in this case, the emphasis was on programming as a computer-oriented activity. The COBOL subject was intended to change the students' perception of computer programming to that of a problem oriented activity. A third year major project where students develop and implement a computer program for a client is intended to introduce the conception of computer programming as a product oriented activity.
The COBOL subject emphasises problem solving and understanding the capabilities of the COBOL language rather than memorisation of the language syntax. Students need to apply a deep learning approach in order to succeed so their conception of learning is important. Säljö (1979) identified a hierarchy of five different conceptions of learning for a group of adults: a quantitative increase in knowledge, memorising, the acquisition of facts which can be retained for use when necessary, the abstraction of meaning and an interpretive process aimed at understanding reality. Only students holding the last two conceptions are likely to adopt a deep learning approach.
The first teaching activity of the COBOL subject was vitally important in conveying to the students the subject's aims and conceptual learning demands. The activity was based on a phenomenographic perspective of learning. Students were required to describe in written or pictorial format, on butcher's paper, their conceptions of computer programming and of learning. Student responses were consistent with the hierarchies of conceptions of computer programming and learning outlined previously.
Computer programming was seen, for example, by one student as 'screenfuls of long complicated code' and 'large programs requiring hours of debugging' and another as 'sitting in front of a terminal for hours' and 'too many commands and functions to remember', clearly computer oriented activities. Others described 'solving puzzles' and 'finding a problem then writing a solution', problem oriented conceptions. Also included were 'a means to an end' and 'producing something useful for someone to use on their computer', conceptions involving product orientation.
Conceptions of learning concentrated on the lower level conceptions identified by Säljö (1979). Examples were 'remembering', 'cramming', 'regurgitation', 'listening, reading, watching etc and committing it to memory for later use', 'understanding or improving your understanding of something', 'being open to new ideas' and 'correctly interpreting information'.
The sheets of butcher's paper were laid out around the room and the students read each others responses. Small group discussions were then initiated to consider the differences and similarities between the responses. Each group reported back to the lecturer who summarised the findings. The students were clearly surprised by the variation in conceptions. A facilitated class discussion then took place on the existence of this variation and the lecturer's purpose in using this approach.
The topic being taught was Newtonian mechanics. It was being taught in the first year of a Physics major stream in a large well-established, metropolitan university. Most, if not all, the students had studied Newtonian mechanics at high school, and felt that they had a reasonable understanding of it. The problem is that, while most students are able to solve textbook problems involving Newtonian Mechanics, their understanding of the fundamental concepts on which it is based is poorly developed (Prosser and Millar, 1989).
Drawing on the two principles mentioned above, the teaching task was (1) to help students focus their attention on their lack of understanding of the fundamental concepts and the importance of understanding in the study of physics at university and (2) to help them see the range of understanding held by the group of students on the fundamental concepts.
In the second lecture of a series of 27 lectures on the topic, the students were asked to engage in a 'buzz group' and plenary discussion focussed on their understanding of the fundamental concepts. In the buzz group students were asked to individually draw a diagram of all the forces on a car going up a hill at a constant speed. They were asked to compare their diagram with the student next to them and to arrive at an agreed diagram. They were given five minutes for this task. It was a task which they felt they were able to achieve.
At the end of the five minutes, the lecturer asked pairs of students at each end of the back row, middle row and front row to describe their diagrams. The diagrams were drawn on the board without comment by the lecturer. The students were then asked to examine the diagrams and to identify the major differences between them. It soon became clear to the students that the diagrams were fundamentally different, and that there was substantial variation within the lecture group on the nature and relative sizes of the forces acting on the car. Similar activities were engaged in by the students throughout the teaching of the topic.
A subsequent evaluation of the topic in this case, based upon pre and post interviews with 24 students showed that at the end of the topic there was substantial variation among the students on what they focussed on during the teaching of the topic (Prosser and Millar, 1989). For a substantial number of students, while they found activities such as the buzz sessions interesting, they were not the focus of their attention. These students showed little change and, in some cases, regression in their understanding of the fundamental concepts. For those students for which these activities were focal, they showed substantial change and improvement.
There was very little variation in the representations offered. All except one simply represented or described two participants in conversation. There was no comment on how or why communication takes place. The one exception included the notion that the listener must understand what is said before communication can occur. When other students were asked for their comments, they were content to say that their own concepts were essentially the same as those on the board. The second attempt at using the approach involved one workshop group of twenty-four students taking the unit. It was the seventh teaching week of the semester, about ten weeks after the first trial. The majority of students appeared to have forgotten the first occasion. In this later attempt, the students were explicitly told that the lecturer was interested in how their views of communication differed. The same procedure was adopted as in the first lecture.
The representations were more complex on this second occasion. All involved some idea of mutuality of interpretation as the essence of communication - an improvement on the notion of sending messages - but there was no greater variety of concepts than on the first attempt. The students had clearly adopted a different concept over the previous seven weeks of the unit, but there was little evidence from this experiment to suggest that they had developed the capacity to reflect on their own conceptions of communication.
The Student learning about computer programming case explored two concepts, computer programming and learning. When discussing the variation within the two conceptions, one group of students noted that particular conceptions of learning were associated with particular conceptions of computer programming. In particular students who viewed learning as remembering or cramming, viewed programming as a computer related activity while those who viewed learning as improvement in understanding held problem solving or product related conceptions of computer programming. From a phenomenographic perspective this was an exciting revelation. There are two major phenomenographic principles on which our teaching activities were based. First, learning involves a change in understanding rather than simply an acquisition of facts. Secondly, the approach to learning students' adopt depends on an interaction between the students' perception of the nature of the task and their prior experience and is strongly related to qualitative outcome. A surface learning approach involves an intent to simply complete the task at hand whereas a deep approach seeks to understand what is being taught. Only through applying a deep approach to learning (an intention to understand what is being taught) can a better understanding of the content be achieved (Ramsden, 1988). In the case, a group of students had noted the relationship between concept of learning and concept of computer programming. The lecturer was able to elaborate on this 'discovery' as a means of sharing with the students the conceptual aims and learning requirements of the subject. The teaching of the subject had begun with the lecturer and students sharing an educational awareness.
The Student Learning in Physics case used solutions from the student body to a specific problem to demonstrate the existence of fundamentally different ways of understanding a topic. The recognition of this by the students allowed the lecturer to spend some time explaining that the understanding of why the diagrams were dissimilar was a fundamental learning outcome for the topic. Demonstration to students of the limiting nature of a particular conception (its inability to explain a full range of scenarios) can be an important stimulus to students seeking a better understanding. As in the Student learning about computer programming case the lecturer was able to make explicit the educational rationale for the buzz group teaching activity, at least to a number of students. Many students still did not focus their attention on the buzz groups, possibly because their conceptions of learning were not addressed by the teaching activity. The previous example highlighted the issue of addressing students conceptions of learning and approaches to learning simultaneously with their conceptions of the subject matter.
Little was gained from the Students taking a communication skills course case apart from the general benefit of focussing students' minds on the topic and alerting the lecturer to the poor understanding of communication in the group. Why should this be so? Three factors may have influenced the outcomes:
The nature of the conception being studied was an important factor in determining the success of the approach. Better results can be expected where the conceptions involved are clearly defined as in Newtonian Mechanics or well researched as in computer programming and learning but not where a poorly defined, complex conception such as communication is involved.
In conclusion, we would argue that from a phenomenographic perspective, continued attempts to help students become aware of their ways of thinking about the phenomenon and concepts they are studying is warranted and likely to lead to success. Telling students the correct answers or confronting students with their misunderstandings are not likely to be successful unless they are also helped to become aware of how their understanding differs form other, more or less correct, ways of understanding.
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| Authors:
Chris Cope, Department of Information Technology, La Trobe University, Bendigo Fax: (054) 44 7998 Email: C.Cope@ latrobe.edu.au Mark Garner, Educational Services Unit, La Trobe University, Bendigo Fax: (054) 44 7373 Email: edserv@latrobe.edu.au
Michael Prosser, Academic Development Unit, La Trobe University |