The concepts and methods of phenomenographic research

This article reviews the nature of "phenomenographic" research and its alle ged conceptual underpinnings in the phenomenological tradition. In common w ith other attempts to apply philosophical phenomenology to the social scien ces, it relies on participants' discursive accounts of their experiences an d cannot validly postulate causal mental entities such as conceptions of le arning. The analytic procedures of phenomenography are very similar to thos e of grounded theory, and like the latter they fall foul of the "dilemma of qualitative method" in failing to reconcile the search for authentic under standing with the need for scientific rigor It is argued that these concept ual and methodological difficulties could be resolved by a constructionist revision of phenomenographic research.