Phenomenography, Variation Theory and Learning Study
Short description
Phenomenography, Variation Theory, and Learning Study is a research environment with a more than 40 year long tradition at the University of Gothenburg. The research is focused on how students experience phenomena, analysis of teaching, and how students' learning opportunities can be enhanced. Studies are often practice-based conducted in school in collaboration with teachers with the aim to improve students’ learning of different subject-matter.
More information
The research environment is grounded in more than four decades of studies on learning and on the development of the phenomenographic research approach and its theoretical extension—Variation Theory (Marton & Booth, 1997; Marton, 2015).
Phenomenography, Variation Theory and Learning Study
Phenomenography focuses on identifying the different ways in which people experience the same phenomenon. Variation Theory is a learning theory used to plan, enact, and analyse teaching in order to create optimal conditions for learning. Learning Study is a theory-based and iterative model for research aimed at developing teaching, inspired by the Japanese lesson study model. Phenomenography, Variation Theory, and Learning Study can be used individually or in combination to create a powerful approach for understanding and improving teaching and learning.
Within our research environment, we explore how opportunities to learn specific content can be improved. We start from the assumption that certain necessary conditions must be met for learning to take place. Identifying what these conditions are and how they can be created in different educational contexts—and in relation to the learning goals at hand—is at the core of our work. A significant part of the research conducted within the environment is practice-based and carried out in collaboration with teachers.
The research approach has gained recognition both within academia and among teaching professionals, nationally as well as internationally.
