Two Faces of Variation: On continuity in the phenomenographic movement

Abstract

Recent developments in phenomenography have created some confusion because their links with the research tradition is not immediately obvious. This paper argues that an interest in variation is the thread that runs through the phenomenographic movement. To understand how the 'new phenomenography' emerged, we must recognise the different senses of variation that have drawn attention at different times. Phenomenography set out to reveal the different ways in which people experience the same phenomena. This 'first face of variation' refers to the variation in ways of seeing something, as experienced and described by the researchers. New phenomenography shifts the primary focus from methodological to theoretical questions, and characterises a way of experiencing something in terms of the critical aspects of the phenomenon as discerned by the learners. However, learners can only discern a particular aspect when they experience variation in that aspect. This is the 'second face of variation', which is experienced by the learners but described by the researchers.

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