Summary of article presentation at the International Conference on Outdoor Learning at the University of East London 3 ed July 2015

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1 1 Summary of article presentation at the International Conference on Outdoor Learning at the University of East London 3 ed July 2015 Perspectives on place 15 professors perceptions of the importance of the place for learning and teaching outdoors. Anders Szczepanski* The National Centre for Outdoor Education, Department of Culture and Communication, Linköping University Per Andersson Department of Behavioural Sciences and Learning, Linköping University Context Expert professors perceptions of the importance about place for learning and teaching in an outdoor pedagogical context related to school and to non-school related contexts. About the Method: phenomenography Phenomenography, developed by Marton (1986) is a qualitative research theoretical framework. According to Marton (1986), Phenomenography is an empirical research tradition that was designed to answer questions about thinking and learning, especially for educational research. It takes a nondualistic ontological perspective; meaning that object and subject are not separate and independent of each other. When a textbook and someone who is reading it are considered, we cannot assume the text in itself and the reader s conceptions are separate things. There is not going to be a textbook in itself, it always has meaning to someone and it is not going to be independent from the reader (Walker, 1998). In phenomenographic research, the researcher chooses to study how people experience a given phenomenon, not to study a given phenomenon. Marton (1986) and Booth (1997) described phenomenography as: Phenomenography is focused on the ways of experiencing different phenomena, ways of seeing them, knowing about them and having skills related to them. The aim is, however, not to find the singular essence, but the variation and the architecture of this variation by different aspects that define the phenomena (Walker, 1998). There are various ways in which people experience or understand a given phenomenon, because different people experience a phenomenon in different ways. Phenomenographers seek to identify the multiple conceptions that people have for a particular phenomenon. The conception of researchers about a given phenomenon is not the focus of the

2 2 study, because the focus of phenomenographical study is about the conceptions that people have on certain phenomenon. The researcher tries to be neutral to the ideas of the participants in the study. As phenomenography is empirical research, the researcher or interviewer is not studying his or her own awareness and reflection, but awareness and reflection of the subjects or participants (Orgill, 2002). This is labelled bracketing. In other words, bracketing means that the researcher must approach both the interview and the data to be analysed open-mindedly without any input from his or her perspectives. During data analysis in phenomenographic research, the researcher will identify qualitatively separate categories that describe the ways in which different people experience a different concept. There can be a limited number of categories for each concept from the study. And these categories can be found in interview transcriptions (Booth, 1997). The analysis includes certain steps as follows: The first step is familiarization, which means the researcher becomes familiar to the material by means of reading through the transcripts. This step is important in making corrections in the transcripts. The second step is compilation of answers from participants to a certain question. The researcher should identify the most significant elements in answers given by participants. The third step is a condensation, or reduction, of the individual answers to find the central parts of a dialogue. The fourth step is preliminary grouping or classification of similar answers. The fifth step is a preliminary comparison of categories. The sixth step is the naming of categories. The last step is a contrastive comparison of categories. It includes a description of the character of each category and similarities between categories. One exampel connected to the category b b. to develop a physical, sensuous relationship to various occurrences/phenomena This category points to the importance of physical, sensuous experience to create a physical relationship by touching the object, sensing smells etc. The relationship in this case is not primarily to create meaning and understanding. Central to the perception is instead the opportunity for a direct relationship between the individual and different phenomena through bodily movements and senses. Such relations are perceived to be important conditions for learning and teaching. Here too the school context is present in the background. The opportunity for physical, sensuous relationships to phenomena is felt to be more restricted in the indoor school environment than when the place is situated outdoors. I must say that for me the concept of body is important. It is important to be able to touch things and to turn one s body towards what one should learn [ ]. It is

3 3 deeply rooted in us that we shall go to the place and be where things happen and be able to touch the objects and sense the smells. There are many more senses that are stimulated and I think in fact that it favours learning ( ). It is enormously important that one can touch things and that one feels with one s hand how big a stone is, for example, and you do not always need to think about it for that has already been intellectualised by the body [ ]. It is in fact not so that you judge every single situation cognitively, and all this you have in your physical memory in some way (7). If you have a school building a structure is already laid down that says that like this should the children sit, however pernicious one knows it to be (8). It is important to use the phenomena in nature and the culture directly instead of only pictures and books indoors, in my opinion (9). It mustn t only be a matter of walking in the country, it should be fun to be in the countryside. I mean all this with scents and visual impressions and the feeling under one s feet (14). To apply phenomenography in educational research for data collection and analysis, the interview, which is a semi-structured individual interview, is the preferred method. The aim of the interview is: To have the participant reflect on his/her experiences and then relate those experiences to the interviewer in such a way that the two come to a mutual understanding about the meanings of the experiences (or of the account of the experiences). (Orgill, 2002). Interviews can be developed according to both the interviewee s conversation and his or her response to the predetermined questions. If the interviewee wants to further explain his or her understanding about the phenomena, the interviewer should let him or her do so. When explanations are not clear, the interviewer should ask questions such as could you explain that further? (Barnard et al., 1999). The interviewer has to make it clear that the interview is open and interviewee can think aloud, be doubtful and also pause. It is important for the researcher not to evaluate the answers as being right or wrong. However, the researcher should show that he or she is really interested in getting the subjects to express themselves clearly (Sjöström & Dahlgren, 2002). Interviews focus on the world of the interviewee and seek to reveal their beliefs, values, reality, feelings and experience of a phenomenon (Barnard et al., 1999). Credibility of Phenomenographic Analysis The main issue of credibility in a phenomenographic study is the relationship between the data obtained from interviews and the categories for describing the ways in which people experience a certain phenomenon. The researcher has to

4 4 show a way to describe similarities and differences that should be supported by the data from transcriptions. Having excerpts from the interviews to support the categories can provide this. In general, the validity of phenomenographic research is based on three factors. The first is the logic of the system of categories emerging from the analysis. The categories must be logically separate and exclusive. The second factor is the correspondence between the results and what is known from previous study in the field. The last is the probability of the categories to be considered (Dahlin, 1999). For reliability, two or more researchers can be asked to analyse the same data independently and compare their findings (Martin et al., 1992). The most important difference between phenomenography and pehenomenology is that phenomenology takes a dualistic ontology in which the object and the subject are considered separately and independently. Contribution to the educational field in this study Learning Environment significance needs to be lifted up on the political agenda in the national education system. From the results of the study, new questions and reflections arise which give us cause to call attention to some possible points of departure for further studies. Thus for example knowledge of the significance of the place for learning and teaching in an outdoor teaching environment could be deepened considerably. It is a matter both of interaction with a classroom-situated practice, and the importance of outdoor teaching environments in a non-school related context. In a further social perspective with the focus on our common habitat, research concerning learning and teaching should have room to develop from an outdoor teaching place perspective.

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