Abstracts - Earli

Connecting student learning and classroom teaching through the variation frameworkFerence Marton, University of Gothenburg, SwedenMing Fai Pang, University of Hong Kong, Hong KongIn a recent paper in The Harvard Educational Review, Graham Nuthall, has called attention to thelacking link between student learning and classroom teaching (2004). This lack is as evident ineducational research as is in the minds of teachers. Lack in the first respect means that researchdoes offer any theoretical tools for teachers for learning from their own experiences, hence lack inthe first respect contributes to lack in the second respect. Accordingly, "Teachers often feel thatlearning outcomes are unpredictable, mysterious and uncontrollable" (Kennedy, 1999 quoted byNuthall, 2004 p 276). The aim of our presentation is to describe a framework, the variationframework from phenomenography, which we believe to be useful in connecting student learningand classroom teaching. By using it, researchers can learn about the nature of the relationshipbetween the two, and teachers can learn from their own experiences about how their students’learning relates to their teaching. This can be done by telling apart what is critical in teaching forthe students’ learning, from what is not critical. First, however, we have to point out the kind oflearning outcomes in relation to which features of teaching might be critical.Researching classrooms: Complexity and chaosMike Radford, Canterbury Christ Church University, United KingdomThis paper presents a critical review of complexity theory in relation to educational research. The‘analytical reductionist’ approach is one in which the educational researcher seeks to reducecomplex wholes to particular factors and to identify correlations between them and desirableoutcomes. Complexity theory shows how this approach in social research is both unreliable withinits own terms of reference and misdirected. Complexity theory is characterised by a number offeatures. These include recognition that educational systems contain multiple variables. Theseconnect in non-linear and dynamic ways, i.e. where factors are seen to interact in a causalrelationship the effects do not necessarily relate proportionally to the cause, and few factors mayinteract with many and many may interact with few. The crucial point of focus is on (a) the natureof the connections that are products of previous interactions reaching into the particular history ofthe organisation, and (b) the constitutive nature of relationships between interacting factors. Threebroad conclusions emerge. The first is that contrary to the promise of reductionist analyticalmethodologies, research cannot deliver the specific kinds of information that are expected toinform policy and practice. The primary role of educational research becomes one of providingdescriptions and explanations that provide a broader perspective on development in whichdecisions are primarily situation-specific. The second is to recognise that school improvement (a)rests on problematic assumptions about desirable outcomes and (b) is dependent on multipleinteracting variables and is thus likely to be local and temporary. The third conclusion is that,rather than seeking to understand schools in terms of factor analysis, research needs to look at thenature of information flow and its constitutive impact on clusters of possible causes and effects.– 635 –