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Proceedings of the Current Issues in Phenomenography Symposium held in Canberra, Australia Nov 2002

Compiled by Gerlese Åkerlind and Mandy Lupton

Ahlberg, Kiki
Paper (pdf ) - View-Turns' University students' narratives of qualitative changes during internship in ways of experiencing situations' meaning

Åkerlind, Gerlese
Paper (Word doc) - Principles and practice in phenomenographic research

Åkerlind, Gerlese
Paper (Word doc) - Academics’ awareness of their own growth and development: Five dimensions of variation

Berglund, Anders
Paper (pdf) - Learning computer systems in a distributed course: Problematizing content and context

Bruce, Christine
Paper (pdf) - Frameworks guiding the analysis: Applied to or derived from the data?

Bruce, Christine
Paper (pdf) - Phenomenography in the Centre for Information Technology Innovation (CITI)

Carroli, Piera
Paper (Word doc) - L2 Literary texts through the eyes of the learners: Epistemologies of culture and language learning

Cope, Chris
Paper (pdf) - Using the analytical framework of a structure of awareness to establish validity and reliability in phenomenographic research

Coupland, Mary and Crawford, Kate
Paper (Word doc) - Researching complex systems of activity

Irvine, Sue
Paper (Word doc) - Parent conceptions of their role in early childhood education and care public policy and service development

Leveson, Lynne
Paper (Word doc) - Differences in an experience of difference itself: variation in the intra-individual experience of approaches to teaching

Pang, Ming Fai
Paper (Word doc) - On continuity in the phenomenographic movement
Paper accepted for publication in the"Scandinavian Journal of Education Research" Vol 47, issue 2 (April issue, 2003).

Pang, Ming Fai and Marton, Ference
Paper (Word doc) - Beyond "lesson study": Comparing two ways of facilitating the grasp of some economic concepts

Patrick, Kate
Paper (Word doc) - Deciding what matters

Schembri, Sharon
Paper (Word doc) - Consumer understanding of professional service quality: A study of General Practice medicine

Willmett, Tony
Paper (pdf) - Phenomenography and sensitive issues: researching sexuality education in a religiously affiliated schooling system

 

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Abstracts of presentations at the Symposium

Keynote address

Ference Marton - Phenomenography and "variation theory": On continuity and change
Phenomenography developed during the eighties and the nineties as a descriptive research specialisation with the aim of capturing people's qualitatively different ways of experiencing various phenomena in the world around them. This research enterprise has, however, gradually become more theoretical and more interventionist. Now, by exploring the origins of the qualitative differences, which previously were only described, we arrive at powerful tools for contibuting to the development of certain ways of seeing certain things by the learners.

 

Panels

Panel 1 -- Principles and Practices of Phenomenographic Research
Chair: Gerlese Åkerlind

John Bowden - Learning to become a phenomenographer: four novices and an experienced phenomenographer in a shared research project
Using a recent example of a group approach to a phenomenographic research project, involving an unusual team (one experienced phenomenographer and four novices), the following issues will be illustrated and opened up for discussion:
1) introducing new researchers to phenomenographic research practice;
2) privileging the transcripts over researcher persepectives; and
3) using a group process to produce categories of description.

Christine Bruce - Frameworks guiding the analysis: applied to or derived from the data?
The opportunity to work on projects where the phenomenon being explored are very closely related leads me to suggest that the details of the analysis framework itself emerges, or is constructed through the interaction between researcher and data. Using an example of how the framework guiding the analysis and the character of the outcome space differed for two closely related projects, I will raise the following points for discussion:
1) that the interrelationship between researcher and data is made visible in the framework guiding the analysis;
2) that the framework guiding the analysis can be only partly specified prior to the research being undertaken;
3) as the analysis is conducted, the phenomenon as it is visible in the data influences the framework guiding the analysis; and
4) the final framework guiding the analysis is a product (for want of a better word) of our prior understanding of the character of phenomena generally, and how they may be described, on the one hand, and the character of the specific phenomenon under investigation, on the other.

Jorgen Sandberg - How phenomenography can gain from social constructionism
It will be argued that social constructionism provides a theoretical framework that enables phenomenographic research to better:
1) identify and describe the social-personal unity of conceptions;
2) understand the relation between micro and macro, that is, how conceptions in specific face-to-face settings are related to conceptions embedded in larger institutional settings and discourses; and
3) understand what, how, when and where conceptions are produced and reproduced.
Finally, the way in which knowledge of the processes that produce and reproduce dominant conceptions of reality can further our understanding of learning will be discussed.

Panel 2 – Applications of Phenomenography in the Classroom
Chair: Jonas Emanuelsson

Ulla Runesson - Possibilities to discern and to learn. Analyzing classroom learning from the point of view of variation
The theoretical point of departure taken is that a certain way of learning, of understanding or “seeing” a particular phenomenon, means that certain critical features must be discerned and held in our awareness simultaneously. Hence, the possibility for the learner to discern or focus on these features is a necessary condition for learning something in a certain way. That which is varying is likely to be discerned. So, a certain pattern of variation is necessary for a certain learning to happen. How the theoretical framework of variation could be applied to research on classroom learning for understanding possibilities to learn will be demonstrated.

Pang Ming Fai - Bringing learning about
My presentation would attempt to investigate how a group of teachers made use of the theory of variation as a resource to develop students' understanding of the economic concept "the incidence of a sales tax" in Hong Kong secondary schools. Focus would be put on the idea of "the learning study", in which the Japanese lesson study is combined with a "design experiment", and the development of the lesson plan was based on the teachers' experience and intuition as made sense of in terms of a learning theory (i.e. the theory of variation).

Kate Patrick - Deciding what matters
How do we choose to describe the learning which is afforded to students by variation in the classroom? My paper is a kind of phenomenographic mind experiment, analysing some recent work on variation and the enacted object of study. I argue that using different frames of reference for describing the object of study results in different ways of characterising - conceiving? - the learning which is afforded in different lessons, which may help us to see new possibilities for educational change.

Panel 3 - Combining phenomenography with other research approaches
Chair: Jo McKenzie

Overview: This panel is designed to generate discussion about why and how researchers combine phenomenography with other research approaches in the context of particular research studies. Issues that we could discuss include whether what we do all depends on the object of the research, whether there are ontological or epistemological perspectives that need to remain consistent across different combinations, and when we would consider a research approach as "combined" rather than simply another way of experiencing phenomenography.

Michael Prosser- Combining phenomenography and quantitative approaches
Phenomenography's focus on mapping the structure of peoples experience of phenomena has usually meant that in-depth interviews with a small number of people thought to represent the variation in the selected population was used. From the perspective of wishing to deepen our understanding of the phenomena in which we are interested - the object of study, larger scale studies are often required. I and my colleagues have attempted to incorporate larger scale studies in two ways. The first has been to use short open-ended written statements from a large number of people. The statements are meant to represent a fragment of a conception. Putting lots of fragmented statements together has allowed for the mapping of the structure of the variation for larger samples. The other way has been to take the categories of description and develop a questionnaire, with scales representing the two extremes of the structure of the variation. This allows for much larger sample sizes and much broader studies of student learning, incorporating but not being reduced to, phenomenographic studies. In my presentation I will outline how and why I have developed such questionnaires and used then in more quantitative studies of teaching and learning.

Elaine Martin - Metaphor as a complement to Phenomenography
Phenomenography explores the variation in the ways in which a phenomenon is understood. It doesn’t only assist us to see the range of understandings - it suggests the relationship between the understandings. It is a delightfully satisfying and useful tool to explore variation in the understanding of a phenomenon within a group of students - and it has been used extensively to this end.

Like all mapping, however, it simplifies and focuses only on key components. It has been described as sketching an anatomy of understanding of a phenomenon. For those who find meaning in rich descriptions rather than structured maps it has been thought limited.

Another limitation that has been noted is that it is not an appropriate method with which to explore change in individuals understanding, even though it is sometimes used in this way. Phenomenography does not focus on individuals and individual responses; rather it takes a sample as a whole data set and looks for variations within the set. Individual responses are decontextualised into categories of response. In consequence data on the individual is lost.

My colleagues and myself have used Metaphor as an instrument of analysis to compliment phenomenography and to overcome the limitations cited above. Metaphor can provide insight into how an individual feels and thinks about a phenomenon at a level that the individual themselves may not be able to coherently articulate. Because the data is collected at the individual level it also helps track change over time.

One way to describe the complementarity of the two methods is to say that phenomenography explores the structure of understanding within a group, whereas metaphor helps us to come to know how understanding and feelings are structured within the individual.

In this work we have develop the work of Munby, 1986 and assumed that metaphor is used in discourse and thinking to help us make sense of a phenomenon, often an abstract phenomenon, by reference to another more concrete and accessible phenomenon in the world. Use of metaphor is tied to our sensory experience of the world and to the structures that underpin that experience in our concrete everyday life. So, we can explore the meaning of subject matter to an interviewee, for instance, by attending to the metaphors she or he adopts then they talk about the subject matter. They might describe the subject as a package, or as a complex map, or as an uncharted landscape - and they will also likely indicate, at some point, how they feel about the map, package or landscape. We find that there is complex coherence in the ways in which metaphors are used throughout an interview and how they give insight into the interviewees thinking and feeling of the subject. A complex picture emerges that may not have been accessible to the interviewees themselves.

The structural unity we find though the metaphoric analysis can subsequently be mapped back onto the phenomenographic outcome space. We are consequently given an in-depth picture of thinking and feeling associated with each part of the outcome space.

Carol Bond - A Focus on the Phenomenal Field
Phenomenography is premised on a number of important principles that provide a valuable starting place for developing other approaches to research. Our interest is the exploration of the meaning and structural relations of various experiences of learning and teaching as a phenomenal field. Our ideas are premised on a particular interpretation of what we have called 'the knowing relation' or the relation between the knower and what is known-a concept that is inclusive of the relation between the researcher and what is researched and the learner and what is learned. We explore the knowing relation by an examination of four key inter-related concepts: the overarching theory of knowledge; the perspective that is adopted; the idea of internal relation; and the notion of experience.

Presentations

Gerlese Åkerlind – Academics’ Awareness of their own Growth and Development: Five dimensions of variation
This paper reports the outcomes of a phenomenographic study of university academics’ experiences of their own growth and development, i.e., what it means to them, how they go about it, what they are trying to achieve, why they do things that way…

The outcomes presented are based on a series of interviews with teaching and research academics at the Australian National University. The group as a whole showed a range of views of academic development, representing in particular varying awareness along the following five key dimensions of variation:

• Breadth of impact of developmental changes;
• Potential for developmental change;
• Source of validation that development has occurred;
• Nature of developmental changes;
• Feelings underlying the development.
  
  Unique combinations of awareness along each of these five dimensions were found to constitute six qualitatively different ways of experiencing growth and development an academic:

• Development as becoming more productive and efficient in one's work output;
• Development as achieving academic credibility and recognition for one's work;
• Development as ongoing improvements in the quality and effectiveness of one's work;
• Development as the ongoing accumulation of personal knowledge and skills;
• Development as increasing depth and sophistication of understanding in one’s field;
• Development as contributing to disciplinary growth or societal change.

Kicki Ahlberg - 'View-Turns' University students' narratives of qualitative changes during internship in ways of experiencing situations' meaning
Learning as qualitatively changed ways of experiencing something and competence as ability to change one’s way of seeing an assignment make developing students’ capacity to change their ways of seeing central to educations. This research project focusses on if processes of changing ways of seeing something are experienced by university students. Narratives confirm that students experience such processes. Phenomenographic data analyses shows two main categories of what is experienced as constituting changing ways of seeing something:
A) Restructuring of one’s Awareness as shifts in Whole/Parts, Figure/Ground, Perspectives and Comparison.
B) Addition of Something New by Receiving Information or Achieving Results.
The results lead to and are to be theoretically elucidated by Variation Theory of Learning.

Anders Berglund, Mary Coupland, Kate Crawford - Joint presentation

Introduction: A phenomenographic perspective on activity theory
In this session, we discuss an approach to study learning in complex environments, where the possibilities of phenomenography is enhanced by influences from activity theory (Engeström, 1987). With an activity theoretical approach to learning, the relation between a subject (a learner, or worker or even a collective) and the object (as learning computer networks, or building a house) is mediated through tools (as a computer with a compiler, or a hammer). Furthermore, the subject-tool-object triad is integrated in a collective, a community (of other learners, or of other workers) and other mediating factors, into a whole: a constantly changing and evolving activity. The object of research is thus extended from primary being the relation between the learner and the object of his/her learning to encompass also the learning environment, or the context of the learning.

We present arguments to why a broader view than what is normally offered by phenomenography is needed, and present two on-going projects that in different ways have adopted this approach.

Paper 1 - Mary Coupland and Kate Crawford - Researching complex systems of activity.
This paper demonstrates how a phenomenographic method may usefully be incorporated into a research study in higher education that is framed by activity theory. The study aims to describe teaching and learning in first year mathematics subjects at university as an activity system, within which the engagement of students with new computer software (a computer algebra system) can be modeled. Students' responses to open-ended questions about their methods for learning mathematics and the reasons for choosing those methods were used to determine four categories that encapsulate both methods of working (actions and operations), and motivations. Parallels with previous results concerning surface and deep approaches to learning are discussed. Using the four categories the diverse and complex ways in which students responded to an introduction to computer algebra are mapped.

Paper 2 - Anders Berglund - Learning computer systems in a distributed course: Problematizing content and context
The approach presented in this paper is based on a project concerning how master level students, who take an internationally distributed project-based course in computer systems, experience their learning of some computer science concepts as well as their learning situation.
With an aim of the project to improve learning in project-based courses in computer systems, a need to explore the learning of the subject area, and to relate it to how the students experience their learning situation, has arisen. To address these issues, the learning situation is modeled as an activity system, in which the socially based nature of complex activities, as learning, are analysed and described. In this paper an approach is proposed where the learning activity is analysed and described as it is experienced by the students.

J.A Bowden, P. Green, R. Barnacle, N. Cherry, & R. Usher - Success in a research project: what does it mean?
Twenty four RMIT University academics were interviewed about their research activities and several phenomenographic analyses are being undertaken on various aspects. One aspect concerns what constitutes success in a research
project and the analysis of that aspect so far has produced five categories of description. While there may be some further change in detail with further analysis the category structure is unlikely to change radically.
The categories are linked to each other through three dimensions of variation in two branches.

The presentation will address the nature of the categories of description, will include excerpts from transcripts to illustrate the categories and will discuss the branched structure of the category linkages on the three dimensions of variation.

Kimberly Bunts-Anderson - Teachers' beliefs and practices study
Studies of student learning have shown that students' conceptions of language learning relate strongly to how they approach study. The Teachers' Beliefs and Practices project looks at the parallel situation for teachers. It looks at the understanding that teachers have of out-of-class interactions in language acquisition and the relationship this has on their approach to teaching. It is expected that those teachers with more highly developed conceptions will more actively integrate these social interactions within the classroom context. This paper will discuss the importance of this type of research to the area of second language learning and discuss some of the initial findings.

Chris Cope - Using a structure of awareness to add reliability and validity to phenomenographic research
Stories abound in phenomenographic circles of the difficulties of getting studies published because the validity and reliability of the research method has been questioned. This is not difficult to understand in situations where reviewers and editors have little or no experience of phenomenography and/or where the research has been conducted and described in a haphazard way. Descriptions of a researcher immersing themselves in some data in a dark room for months on end and then emerging triumphantly with a cry of "Eureka" and clutching a set of hierarchically related, critically different categories of description must seem like black magic.

This session will canvas and discuss ideas as to how phenomenographic studies can be conducted and described in a manner which will preempt criticism of validity and reliability. Approaches likely to be discussed include the use of the analytical framework of a structure of awareness, interjudge communicability and diagrammatic techniques for describing method.

Piera Carroli - L2 Literature through the eyes of the learners: epistemologies of culture and language learning
Researchers and teachers have debated the topic of the place of language and literature in the foreign language curriculum for the latter part of this century. Literary works have often been defined as excellent authentic materials (Kramsch 1993; Hamilton 1997). However, in an article published 1997 by Edmondson, he articulated the opposite view point, claiming that although educators and researchers have long debated the role of literature in the L2 curriculum, and have reached different conclusions, the views of the students have rarely informed researchers conclusions.

The PhD thesis (The possible roles of L2 literature) looks at students’ use and understanding of literature as a basis to answer a central question in language learning debates and aims also at developing a pedagogy of literature in L2 to improve the quality of students’ interpretation of literary texts. The thesis will argue that it is crucial that students’ attitudes and reading backgrounds be taken into account, as well as their perceptions of learning through literature, in the curriculum design and the teaching approach.

This paper will focus on a study conducted in 1999 that provides the basis for one of the main chapters in the thesis. The study aimed at answering the following questions: do advanced students see literature as language learning? How clearly do students see the place of literature in their learning? As language and/or culture learning? Do they perceive it as problematic, enjoyable, boring? Why? What do they find problematic, enjoyable, uninteresting? How do students approach literature? As story, as language, as culture? What characterises these approaches? What strategies do students use to assist their reading? Which approaches and strategies are more successful in terms of quality of interpretation of the texts and language learning? What are the consequences of students’ experience (Marton & Booth 1997) of literature for 1) their learning, 2) our teaching.

Attitudes, perceptions to literary text, and experience of literary texts as learning of Intermediate students of Italian were gathered in semester 1, 1999 in interview form, diary form and teacher classroom notes. From a preliminary summary of the interviews two main themes emerged from students’ experience of literature: words and forms in a text; world in a text. In semester 2, 1999 the major focus of the research was the relationship between form and culture: in terms of learning outcomes, which students were successful in reading and writing about literature? Why? (Their general approach to learning? Their specific approach to reading literary texts? Their background?). The paper attempts to answer some of these questions that will be later fully analysed in the chapter of the doctoral thesis.

Sue Irvine- The role of parents in early childhood policy and service development: A proposal for identifying parent expectations and perceptions using phenomenographic research
This paper promotes the need for research to reveal parent expectations and perceptions of their role in early childhood education and care (ECEC) policy and service development. Despite calls for enhanced parent engagement (OECD, 2001), there continues to exist a wide range of images of, and approaches to, parents in ECEC; yet little is known as to how parents view themselves within these contexts. In light of evidence of a failing Australian ECEC system, a government reform agenda, and policy emphasis on parents as both ‘consumers’ and ‘participants’ in ECEC, it is argued that research to draw out parent thinking on this matter is both necessary and timely. Reflecting on previous studies, the paper makes a case for phenomenographic research to draw out parent thinking at a deeper level to support evidence-based policy and the development of services that are more responsive to expressed family needs and expectations.

Lynne Leveson - Variation in the experience of the transition in teaching approach between first and third year accounting classes
The preliminary results of one aspect of an investigation into the variation in teaching approach of a group of Australian accounting lecturers are presented. This aspect involves a comparison of how teaching approach is experienced by these lecturers across two different teaching contexts. The specific question addressed is “What variation exists in lecturers’ experiences of the transition in teaching their first year, compared to their third year accounting classes?”
The analysis of this question entailed comparing the structure of individual awareness as it relates to teaching approach at first year with the structure of awareness as it relates to teaching approach at third year. Approach is analysed according to the “how” aspect of teaching - the act and the indirect object. Lecturers were asked to reflect on their intention and the associated strategies they used when teaching their first year classes and then their third year classes. An outcome space consisting of four qualitatively different ways of experiencing this transition is constituted from the data. The results describe variation between and within individuals. Whilst there is evidence within the data that the transition in teaching between the two year levels is experienced in qualitatively different ways within the group, no evidence could be found to indicate any qualitative differences at an intra-individual level.

Variation within the group
This variation is described in four categories which range from the least complex, that of maintaining a teacher-centred strategy in order to deal with content which is of greater complexity and volume to the most sophisticated, that of maintaining complex student strategies in order to extend individualised change and growth. Within the data there is a clear distinction inhow the transition is described - either by focusing on the subject and the student or by focusing on the subject alone.

Intra-individual variation
Contrary to anecdotal evidence, at the individual level no one lecturer describes the transition involved in teaching year one compared to year three in a way of which indicates that there is a qualitative shift in their experience. Although the different demands of third compared to first year teaching were figural in their awareness, the response to these demands was to vary aspects of their teaching approach but not to the extent of representing a qualitative change in experience. This suggests an overall consistency in teaching approach infused in some instances with an element of intransigence as well.

Mandy Lupton - Researching an essay: Students' ways of experiencing information literacy in an undergraduate course
This work-in-progress presentation discusses my Masters research into undergraduates' ways of experiencing information literacy in the context of researching an essay. Semi structured interviews with 20 first year students in an environmental science course formed the primary data. The ways in which students' searched for, used and thought about information were examined. The curriculum of the course was designed around an inquiry learning approach with embedded information literacy education. Research questions included: How did students use information in their essay? What are undergraduates' conceptions of information literacy? Does curriculum design affect experiences of information literacy? How can curriculum be designed to develop information literacy?

Peter G. McDonald - The Nature and Acquisition of Algorithm Understanding: A Phenomenographic Investigation.
This research project aims to investigate the nature and acquisition of algorithm understanding by students studying in undergraduate and graduate diploma degree programs within the School of Computer Science & Information Technology at RMIT.

Algorithms are fundamental to Computer Science. A deep understanding of algorithms is normally considered prerequisite for making expert selection from amongst, and performing analysis on, the many existing algorithms, as well as for the synthesis of new algorithms.

This project will be longitudinal, tracking a total of four groups of 20 students (80 students in total) through their 2-3 year degree programs. Data collection will take the form of semi-structured interviews, questionnaires, and algorithm understanding exercises, and will occur once at the beginning of the program, and then twice per year (end of each semester) over the remainder of the 2 year (GradDip) to 3 year (UnderGrad) programs.

Pang Ming Fai - On continuity in the phenomenographic movement
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.

Nicola Parker - Assignments and Learning: Exploring Postgraduate Experiences of Information and Assessment Processes
My presentation will focus on my PhD research exploring postgraduate student learning through information interactions and assessment. The research goal is to understand holistic experiences of postgraduate students in their interactions with information, as part of the self-directed learning process of preparing reports and essays. Assignments are used extensively for assessment in many university faculties and are crucial to students’ learning and academic success. Fifteen interviews focusing on Information Science students’ experiences of these tasks at three stages have been completed and are currently being analysed to explore the variation in experience. Understanding the information and student learning components of assessment is an important consideration for teachers in higher education and it is hoped that this research may help improve students’ experiences and outcomes. Naturally many issues have arisen in the course of the research project. Some of those that I am currently grappling with and would be keen to discuss include:

• The ‘bracketing’ of researchers preconceptions.
• Studying experiences as processes over time.
• How to accommodate multidimensional experiences.
• The role of affective factors in phenomenography.

Sharon Schembri - Consumer conceptions of professional service quality: A study of General Practice medicine
The purpose of this study is to recognise consumer conceptions of professional service quality, with General Practice (GP) medicine as the specific context of application. Doctor-patient consultations were recorded on video and both doctor and patient were interviewed independently post-consultation. Eight GPs collectively supplied 30 patients and
consequently, three conceptions of GP service quality were identified. The most comprehensive consumer conception of GP service quality identified is the partnering conception. Patients holding the partnering conception are focused on the task health management and consider the doctor their partner in this endeavour. The second GP service quality conception identified is the monitoring conception. Patients holding this conception are focused on distrust of medical people and processes and are therefore scrutinising every element of the service experience. The third and least comprehensive conception identified is that of the passive conception. Patients holding this conception of GP service quality are content to passively experience the service experience and are therefore looking for the doctor to take the
authorative role. In recognising how consumers of GP services understand GP service quality, we are effectively enabling improved GP service quality. Furthermore, recognition of this range of varying meanings of service quality, translates to wider implications in terms of promotional, marketing and educational programs aiming to better manage service quality and service quality evaluation.

Kelvin Tan - Academics’ Conceptions of Student Self-assessment
This paper for a new researcher session reports the draft findings of an investigation into the different meanings that academics experience in student self-assessment. Student self-assessment is delimited in the research project as “the involvement of students in making judgments of their own learning”. This presentation reports findings on the “what aspect” of academics’ experiences of student self-assessment. It addresses the question “What does it mean (to academics) to involve students in making judgments of their own learning?”
Five different meanings of student self-assessment were identified.
(1) In the behavioural mechanism conception, student self-assessment is understood as a mechanism for objectively involving students in making judgments of their behaviour . This means that students should examine their own behaviour and accept the academic’s unilateral judgment of their behaviour to determine if they had learned effectively.
(2) In the knowledge dichotomy conception, SSA is viewed as the dichotomy between students’ formative judgments of their knowledge and academic’s summative determination of student’s learning. This means that students should self-assess their work prior to submission but accept the academic’s unilateral assessment as the determiner of what their work is worth.
(3) In the standards dialogue conception, SSA is a dialogue between students’ tentative judgments and academic’s conclusive knowledge of performance standards. This means that students may judge the standard of their performance in order to appreciate what the academic’s relative standards are.
(4) In the proficiency evaluation conception, SSA is the “ the involvement of students in making evaluative judgments of their proficiency. This means that students can judge their proficiency in order to monitor and control their progress in the program of study.
(5) And finally, in the educational imperative conception, SSA is an imperative for students to be involved in making independent judgments of their pedagogy and professional practice. This means that students have to confront their pedagogy and judging ability in the present program of learning in order to be able to make judgments of their professional work in the future.
Participants in this new researcher session are invited to comment on the communicability of these draft categories of description.

Tony Willmett - Phenomenography and sensitive issues: Researching sexuality education in a religiously affiliated schooling system.
Phenomenography, and the use of synergetic focus groups, were chosen as a research approach into the current and sensitive issue of sexuality education in Catholic primary schools. The paper presents an outline of the research approach that was adopted and a description of the conceptions of sexuality education held by a group of teachers in Catholic primary schools. It presents reflections on the research approach and highlights the potential the approach has for issues that are sometimes described as sensitive, personal or controversial.

Presentations

There will be three formats for presentations. Each format is described further below.

New researcher presentations
These sessions are designed for presentations on early work-in-progress, including research proposals. There will be a strong emphasis on soliciting feedback from the audience of value to the presenter. Presenters will have the opportunity to set their own feedback agenda, in terms of structured opportunities to pose questions to the audience (as well as receiving questions from the audience). The audience will also be asked to provide brief written comments on the research presented, which will be collected for the presenter. Each session is for 30 minutes, consisting of 15 minutes presentation and 15 minutes discussion.

General presentations
These sessions are designed for presentations on completed or substantially completed work. Each session is for 30 minutes, consisting of 15 minutes presentation and 15 minutes discussion.

Discussion sessions
These sessions are designed for those who wish to discuss an issue in detail. Sessions may be organised in advance, but there will also be opportunities for impromptu sessions to be organised during the Symposium, as issues arise. Each session is for 90 minutes, and the organiser will have substantial flexibility in how they choose to organise the session. However, this should include an overview of the significance of the issue they have raised, and any relevant literature of which they are aware.

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