Phenomenology
Phenomenology is the study of phenomena. It has its roots in the philosophical movement initiated by Husserl (Beyer, 2011) which suspended traditional philosophical approaches which try to understand the fundamental nature of reality in favour of focusing on analysis of phenomena as they are experienced. This approach allows for an objective appreciation of phenomena that are considered to be subjective.
Phenomenology has been applied extensively in a range of diverse disciplines (Friesen et al., 2012). In educational science, phenomenological descriptions are used to articulate the interests, aims, approaches, cultures, interactions, structures and reflections of educators and/or learners in a particular context.
Phenomenology: GO-GN Insights
Sarah Hutton conducted in-depth interviews with students and content analysis to connect shared internal goals supported by participation in an open publishing model where students are provided the opportunity to self-publish openly online or contribute to OER materials for the course.
“A phenomenological case study provides the opportunity for creating a rich narrative surrounding a shared experience. This method can help researchers establish a better understanding of individual meanings, and how subjects uniquely comprehend the world around them. Phenomenology and grounded theory pair well together for data collection and analysis, allowing for a more natural emergence of new ideas and thematic elements across a shared experience.
“A disadvantage to this type of approach is the sheer volume of data that must be collected and sorted through to create that narrative. While recommendations on numbers of study participants may vary slightly between researchers, the more data that is collected over a longitudinal period, the stronger a pattern can be indicated as interviews are analyzed. In depth interviews produce a large amount of data for analysis, and for a course case study, 3 interviews should be completed (beginning, middle, end) to complete a longitudinal thread of student experience and development throughout the course. Another disadvantage is that, similar to other qualitative data methods, phenomenology may be taken less seriously by policy makers than other larger-scale quantitative studies.”
Michael Paskevicius used a phenomenological approach with self-identifying open education practitioners. This explores how OEPs are being actualised in formal
higher education and impacting learning design, and describes the ways educators are bringing elements of openness into their everyday teaching and learning
practice through educational technologies.
“I employed an empirical phenomenological approach in my PhD study to investigate the personal social construction and ‘lifeworld’ human experience
of individuals engaging with OEP (Giorgi, 1997; Gray, 2013). At the core of phenomenological research is a pursuit of understanding mental directedness or consciousness by investigating individual