Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research

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Two Faces of Variation: On continuity in the

phenomenographic movement

Ming Fai Pang

To cite this article: Ming Fai Pang (2003) Two Faces of Variation: On continuity in the
phenomenographic movement, Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 47:2, 145-156,
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Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research,
Vol. 47, No. 2, 2003

Two Faces of Variation: on

continuity in the phenomenographic
movement [1]
MING FAI PANG
Faculty of Education, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China

ABSTRACT 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.

Key words: phenomenography; student learning; theory of variation

INTRODUCTION
Phenomenography was developed by a research group in the Department of Edu-
cation at the University of Göteborg in Sweden during the early 1970s. The word
‘phenomenography’ was coined in 1979 and it appeared first in the work of Marton
(1981). Etymologically, it derives from the Greek words ‘phainemenon’ and
‘graphein’, which mean appearance and description, and phenomenography is thus
concerned about the description of things as they appear to us. Fundamental to an
understanding of the phenomenographic approach is to realise that its epistemolog-
ical stance is grounded in the principle of intentionality, which embodies a non-du-
alist view of human cognition insofar as it depicts experience as an internal relation-
ship between human beings and the world. The aim of research is to describe
qualitatively different ways of experiencing various phenomena. Methodologically,
ISSN 0031-3831 print; ISSN 1430-1170 online/03/020145-12  2003 Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research
DOI: 10.1080/0031383032000047466
146 Ming Fai Pang

this implies a second-order perspective, through which the researcher seeks to

capture how the world appears to other people (Marton, 1981).
In phenomenography, the object of research is variation in ways of experiencing
different phenomena. The ‘first face of variation’ refers to the study of variation
between different ways of experiencing the same phenomena, wherein the categories
of descriptions and outcome space are instrumental to characterising how people
experience reality. Most studies in this strand of research orientation ask ‘what are
the different ways of experiencing the phenomenon?’ Phenomenography in this
sense is descriptive and methodologically oriented. It is concerned about the various
ways in which a particular phenomenon appears to different people, and it is the
researcher who senses this variation.
This empirical research tradition has been in a state of perpetual flux over the
past 28 years. Very much as a response to criticism of phenomenography’s atheoret-
ical stance, most notably by Säljö (1994), the questions now are: ‘what is a way of
experiencing a phenomenon’ and ‘how do different ways of experiencing something
evolve?’ According to the new phenomenography, a way of experiencing something
is defined in terms of the critical aspects of the phenomenon in question as discerned
and focused upon by the experiencer at the same time. Nobody can discern an
aspect of a phenomenon without experiencing variation in a dimension which
corresponds to that aspect (Marton & Booth, 1997). The variation that corresponds
to the critical aspects of the phenomenon, i.e. the dimensions of variation as
experienced by the ‘experiencer’, is the ‘second face of variation’ to which we allude.
This implies a shift in the primary emphasis of phenomenography from methodolog-
ical to theoretical concerns, i.e. from questions about how to describe different ways
of experiencing something to questions concerning what is the nature of the different
ways of experiencing something described.

EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF PHENOMENOGRAPHY

The roots of phenomenography lie in a set of empirical studies of the way in which
Swedish university students learnt from reading academic texts (e.g. Marton, 1974;
Dahlgren, 1975; Säljö, 1975; Svensson, 1976). The point of departure for these
studies was to empirically investigate the two following questions: (1) ‘What does it
mean, that some people are better at learning than others?’; and (2) ‘Why are some
people better at learning than others?’
When exploring the first question, a limited number of distinctively different
ways of understanding the text read were found, and they were revealed in the form
of categories of description. A hierarchy was established by drawing on their logical
relationships, and an outcome space was formed. The answer to the second question
was sought from the finding that there was a strong relationship between people’s
differing understandings of the text and their differing acts of reading, which
supported the principle of intentionality that Marton (1981) purports. The qualita-
tive differences in the outcome of learning were closely linked to the variation in
approaches to learning (the deep versus the surface approach) that were adopted by
the learners.
 Phenomenography’s Recent Developments 147

These studies helped phenomenography to evolve into a distinct research

specialisation, which aimed at describing qualitatively different ways in which people
make sense of various kinds of phenomena in the world around them. The questions
that phenomenography addressed were ‘what are the different ways of experiencing
the phenomenon’ and ‘how are these related to each other?’ The descriptions of
people’s experience were seen as concrete cases of human functioning, primarily at
the collective level (Marton, 1981), and these categories of descriptions that corre-
spond to those varying understandings, and thus the outcome space, constituted the
main results of phenomenographic research.
A large number of studies were conducted in accordance with this research
direction. Some have dealt with the content of learning and have studied people’s
conceptions in various content domains. This thread of research includes the
Dahlgren (1980) study of economic conceptions; the Lybeck (1981) study of the
student conception of proportionality; the Johansson et al. (1985) study of student
understandings of mechanics; the Neuman (1987) study of how young children
handle arithmetic problems; the Lybeck et al. (1988) study of student conceptions
of the mole concept in Chemistry; and the Renström (1988) study of student
understandings of the nature of matter.
A parallel series of phenomenographic studies investigated the act of learning,
and focused on studying learners conceptions of what learning actually is (Säljö,
1982; Pramling, 1983; Marton et al., 1993). The phenomenographic research
method has also been applied to the study of phenomena outside of the educational
context, such as the Theman (1983) study of conceptions of political power, the
Wenestam (1984) study of conceptions of death, and the Marton et al. (1992) study
of Nobel laureate views of scientific intuition.

THE RECENT DEVELOPMENT OF PHENOMENOGRAPHY

The studies of student differences in learning and of ways of experiencing discussed
above led to a new phase of phenomenography whose aim was to characterise
particular ways of experiencing. According to phenomenography, every phenom-
enon can be experienced in a finite number of qualitatively different ways, and in
order to characterise this variation, it is important to understand what it means to
experience a phenomenon in a particular way. As such, phenomenography recently
moved on from attempts to describe different ways of experiencing various phenom-
ena to attempts to answer such questions as ‘what is a way of experiencing
something’ and ‘what is the actual difference between two ways of experiencing the
same thing?’
This is a shift in primary emphasis from questions concerning how different
ways of experiencing something can be captured methodologically to theoretical
questions about the nature of the differences. This is a qualitative shift resembling
the shift from the studies in the mid-seventies with explanatory ambitions to the
ascent of phenomenography as a fundamentally descriptive undertaking. The recent
shift can actually be seen as a return to the original questions about learning from
which phenomenography evolved.
148 Ming Fai Pang

The answer to the first question (What is a way of experiencing something?)

above is simply the following. Every phenomenon that we encounter is infinitely
complex, but for every phenomenon there is a limited number of critical features
that distinguish the phenomenon from other phenomena. What critical features the
learner discerns and focuses on simultaneously characterises a specific way of
experiencing that phenomenon. But a feature cannot be discerned without experi-
encing variation in a dimension corresponding to that feature. So while in phe-
nomenography in the past, researchers described the variation they could detect
(experience) between the different ways in which people experience various phe-
nomena, in phenomenography now, researchers also describe the variation in
various aspects of the world around as experienced by the learners. We will elaborate
this further.
Marton and Booth (1997) posited that a way of experiencing something is
related to how a person’s awareness is structured. It contains both a ‘what’ aspect,
which corresponds to the object, and a ‘how’ aspect, which relates to the act, and
can be thought of in terms of the dynamic relationship between the two aspects of
human awareness, the structural and the referential (or meaning) aspects.
By making reference to the work of Gurwitsch (1964), Marton (1988) dis-
cussed this relationship with the use of gestalt theory, in which a gestalt is defined
as a collection of items that each support and determine one another. To experience
something as an identifiable whole from its surrounding context, that something
must be perceived as a gestalt, a thematic whole, which is discerned from its context.
Since a whole is made up of parts, arguably its parts and the relationship between
them must also be discerned in a simultaneous manner (Marton & Booth, 1997).
The structural aspect of a way of experiencing denotes the relationship between
the different aspects of a phenomenon, which constitute its overall meaning. This
can be elucidated in terms of what Marton and Booth (1997) call the internal
horizon and the external horizon. The internal horizon refers to the parts and their
relationship, together with the part-whole structure discerned therein. A figure is
made up of its component parts, and the interplay of each part contributes function-
ally to the whole figure, which carries an overall meaning. This effectively delimits
the parts and their relationship.
The external horizon refers to ‘the way in which the phenomenon we experience
in a certain way is discerned from its context … [and] how it is related to its context
as well’ (Marton & Booth, 1997, p. 89). To experience something in a particular
way, a person must discern a whole from the context, and at the same time
understand its relationship to the context as well as to other contexts. The external
horizon extends from the immediate boundary of the experience through all other
contexts in which similar and related happenings have been experienced.
However, in order to discern something as such from its context, a person
would have already identified that which is discerned as a particular thing and
assigned a meaning to it; otherwise a person could not delimit it from its context at
all. This is what is referred to as the referential aspect, which denotes the overall
meaning assigned to a phenomenon. Yet this discernment can also be analysed in
terms of its internal structure. For instance, an object, which has been identified as
 Phenomenography’s Recent Developments 149

a chair must also be seen in possession of armrests, legs etc., all contributing to the
concept of ‘chair’. Structure presupposes meaning and meaning presupposes struc-
ture. Structure and meaning thus mutually contribute to each other in the act of
experiencing.
Marton and Booth (1997) exemplified this situation by describing the Katona
experiment that took place in 1940. People were asked to remember a series of
numerals: 581215192226. Those who derived a principle from the sequence, which
was an arithmetic progression with alternative additions of 3 and 4, displayed better
retention than their counterparts who simply memorised the long chunk of numer-
als. The former group structured the series of numerals in such a way that a certain
overall meaning was formed. The numerals were seen as a series of seven related
numbers (5, 8, 12, 15, 19, 22 and 26). However, those who were not aware of the
rule perceived the numerals as an ensemble of unrelated figures.
There was a great difference in the internal horizon of the two ways of
experiencing, in terms of how different parts were discerned (either as one numeral
at a time or as an arithmetic progression of 5, 8, 12 … ), how the parts related to
each other (with either no relationship identified or through the alternative addition
of 3 and 4), and how they formed the whole (either as an arbitrary ensemble of
numerals or as a number series formed under a rule). This showed that the
structural and meaning aspects of a way of experiencing mutually contributed to
each other. According to Marton and Booth (1997):

finding the meaning (the rule) presupposes finding the structure (the
particular way of grouping the numbers); and vice versa, the structure
springs from the meaning found. (p. 88)

With regard to the external horizon, if a person was presented with the series of
numbers as part of an IQ test, then they would be more likely discover the rule as
they looked for hidden relationships. Furthermore, a change in the referential aspect
of an experience is intimately intertwined with a change in the external horizon of
the structural aspect. For example, if the number series was presented to adults as
the payoff of the Triple Trios Betting of the horse-racing held in Hong Kong which
amounted to $5 812 151 922.26, then the external horizon would change and the
series of numbers would take on a totally different meaning. At the same time, the
internal horizon would also change, and greater significance would be given to the
leftmost than the rightmost figures (Marton, 1988).
According to Marton and Booth (1997), the structural and referential aspects
of human awareness are the dialectically intertwined aspects of a way of experiencing
a phenomenon. Marton (1993) stated clearly that:

Awareness has a particular structure also as far as the theme is concerned.

The theme appears to the subject in a certain way; it is seen from a
particular point of view. The specific experience (or conception) of a
theme—or of an object, […] can be defined in terms of the way in which
it is delimited from, and related to, a context and in terms of the ways its
150 Ming Fai Pang

components parts are delimited from, and related to each other, and to the
whole. (p. 10)

A way of experiencing a phenomenon can thus be depicted in terms of the structure

of awareness at a particular moment, which can be characterised in terms of a
generalised figure-ground structure. At any instant, for something or some aspects
of the phenomenon to come to the fore, other things or aspects must recede into the
background or margins. Although one is aware of numerous things at the same time,
one is certainly not aware of everything in the same way.
As such, ‘qualitatively different ways of experiencing something can be under-
stood in terms of differences in the structure or organisation of awareness at a
particular moment or moments’ (Marton & Booth, 1997, p. 100). The same person
may have different ways of experiencing the same phenomenon at different times
when he/she focuses on and discerns different aspects of the phenomenon. These
discerned aspects together with the experienced relationships amongst them consti-
tute the structural aspect of a way of experiencing the phenomenon, and thus the
structural aspect is dialectically intertwined with the referential aspect of the
phenomenon. The key feature of a way of experiencing something (both the
structural and referential aspects) is ‘the set of different aspects of the phenomenon
as experienced that are simultaneously present in focal awareness’ (Marton & Booth,
1997, p. 101).
The point of departure for the theory of variation is that learning is premised on
the learner’s dynamic structure of awareness, and is related to discernment, vari-
ation, and simultaneity (both synchronically and diachronically) (Marton & Booth,
1997; Marton & Pang, 1999; Pang, 2002). Learning is associated with a change in
discernment, which entails a change in the aspect(s) of the phenomenon in the focal
awareness of the learner. Yet how is it possible to bring forth a change of the
aspect(s) in the learner’s focal awareness? Variation is deemed to be the key for
effective discernment, and the chief mechanism of learning. According to Marton
(1999), variation is the sine qua non of learning.
In order to discern, one must experience variability; for discernment assumes
experienced variation. When certain aspects of a phenomenon vary while other
aspects remain invariant, those aspects that vary are discerned. In other words, we
can only discern what varies. Without variation among the instances, i.e. experienc-
ing a number of different values relating to a particular aspect in separate instances,
we would not be able to tell what is common across the instances encountered and
see the common, critical aspect. For instance, one would not be able to discern the
aspect of gender should there be only one gender in the world; or the aspect of
happiness should the Earth be filled with invariable happiness. Every aspect can be
a dimension of variation, and the ability to discern a critical aspect is seen as a
function of the variation that is experienced in the dimension, which corresponds to
that aspect. According to Bowden and Marton (1998):

When some aspect of a phenomenon or an event varies while another

aspect or other aspects remain invariant, the varying aspect will be dis-
 Phenomenography’s Recent Developments 151

cerned. In order for this to happen, variation must be experienced by

someone as variation. (p. 35)

The experience of variation implies that a person is aware of the critical features of
the phenomenon simultaneously either at different points in time, diachronically, or
at one specific time, synchronically. An example of experiencing diachronically is
when we notice the pitch of a musical note that is especially high or low. This we
do against the backdrop of our previous experience of variation in the pitch, and to
experience that variation we have to experience simultaneously (in the diachronic
sense) the pitch of notes that we have heard at different points in time. Otherwise,
the musical notes may just represent independent, discrete and free-floating in-
stances, and no variation can be observed. According to Bowden and Marton
(1998):

As far as the time aspect is concerned, our awareness is at every moment

a reflection of what we have experienced earlier. (p. 38)

There is no simultaneity without discernment. To have a simultaneous experience

of a critical aspect of a phenomenon across time, this aspect must be in a person’s
focal awareness, and the experiencer must discern it as an aspect. For example, to
experience the height of a person, the dimension of height must be discerned.
Through the diachronic experience of simultaneity, the different ‘values’ (i.e. in-
stances) of an aspect of the phenomenon are synthesised to constitute a dimension
of variation, and discernment depends on the variation that is experienced. As a
corollary, without discernment we would not have simultaneous experience, in the
sense of experiencing different instances of an aspect at different points in time (i.e.
diachronically).
In order for a phenomenon to be experienced in a particular way, certain
aspects which correspond to the dimensions of variation of that phenomenon must
also be discerned at one time, synchronically. For instance, to develop a complete
way of understanding the Archimedes’ principle one must be focally aware of the
weight of a body immersed in water as compared to its weight when not immersed,
and of the weight of the water displaced at the same time (Marton & Booth, 1997).
Thus, a particular way of experiencing something thus represents a set of related
aspects, which are discerned and focused upon in a simultaneous manner (i.e.
synchronically).
According to Marton and Booth (1997), the limited number of qualitatively
different ways of experiencing something can be understood in terms of the discern-
ment of aspects, the simultaneity of discerned aspects (at a certain point in time, i.e.
synchronically) and the potential for variation in the discerned aspects of the
phenomenon in question. For instance, the different ways in which children under-
stand numbers have been described in terms of ‘many-ness’ and sequential ordering
of number. Some children discern and focus on the ‘manyness-aspect’ of numbers,
others discern the sequential aspect; some discern and focus on both at the same
time, while others discern none of these aspects (see, for instance, Marton & Booth,
1997). However, to discern ‘many-ness’ the child must have experienced variation
152 Ming Fai Pang

in that respect. They cannot experience the ‘six-ness’ of six, for instance, without
experiencing the ‘five-ness’ of five and the ‘seven-ness’ of seven etc. Moreover, to
experience the sequential aspect of numbers the child must also experience variation
in that respect. To experience the ‘sixth-ness’ of six, for instance, they must
experience ‘the fifth-ness of five’, the ‘seventh-ness’ of seven etc.
Moreover, simultaneity in the synchronic sense is seen as a function of discern-
ment. Again discernment is a function of variation. A way of experiencing a
phenomenon is depicted in terms of the critical aspects of the phenomenon in
question that are discerned and focused on simultaneously (synchronically) by the
experiencer. Every aspect can be a dimension of variation, and the capability of
discerning a critical aspect is seen as a function of the variation that is experienced
in the dimension, which corresponds to that aspect. A way of experiencing some-
thing is seen as an internal relationship between the person (the experiencer) and the
world (the experienced). It is a space that is defined by the dimensions of variation
as experienced, i.e. a space of experiential variation (Marton & Fazey, 1997).
The new phenomenography studies both the variation among different ways of
experiencing something as seen by the researcher, and the variation among the
critical aspects of the phenomenon itself as experienced by the learner. This is
because a particular way of experiencing a phenomenon can be understood in terms
of either particular features of a person’s awareness, or the dimensions of variation
that are discerned and simultaneously focused upon. Correspondingly, the different
ways in which different phenomena can be experienced, the collective mind, reflect
the differences in the structure and organisation of awareness.
A simple but clear illustration of this new orientation comes from the Pong
(2000) study on student conceptions of the economic phenomenon of pricing. In
addition to identifying and describing four qualitatively different ways of conceptu-
alising price, the study depicted conceptions that were identified in terms of the
critical aspects that were simultaneously focused upon and discerned. Apart from
the differences in the overall meanings assigned to price, i.e. the referential aspect,
there was also variation in terms of the internal structure of the conceptions, i.e. the
structural aspect, as shown in Table I (Pong, 2000).
For conception A, what was focused upon by the students was the physical
particulars of the specific object, whilst for the other three conceptions the object
was regarded as an example of generic objects. As such, the critical aspect of
experiencing price was the concept of market, which could be opened up for
variation or taken for granted by the students. Some students were engaged in
variation in the dimension of the market determination of price, such as by a change
in demand only (Conception B), by a change in supply only (Conception C) and by
the interaction of changes in demand and supply (Conception D). Other students
took the concept of the market for granted, which implied that it had already been
discerned (Conception A).
This study depicted conceptions or ways of experiencing as dynamically chang-
ing states of awareness, and characterised as different ways of being aware of the
same situation. A certain way of experiencing can be seen as a certain state of
awareness, which can be thought of in terms of the dynamic relationship between
 Phenomenography’s Recent Developments 153

TABLE I. Summary of conceptions of price found

Category Referential Aspect Structural Aspect

A Price is a property of the object Focus on the features of the object in

concerned question
Variation brought about in the
quality of the object
B Price is related to the demand Focus on macroeconomic factors
conditions of the market in Variation brought about in one or
which the object is situated more of these factors
C Price is related to the supply Focus on the availability of the
conditions of the market in object
which the object is situated Variation brought about by changes
in supply conditions
D Price is related to the opposing Focus simultaneously on both
forces of demand and supply supply and demand aspects
conditions of the market in Variation brought about by changes
which the object is situated in both aspects of the price change

focus and meaning. Thus, when a student directs his focal attention to a certain
aspect or aspects of a context or situation, a certain conception is formed. The
difference in conception or shifts between conceptions is characterised in terms of
parallel differences or changes in the structural and referential aspect of the concep-
tion. Therefore, this study exemplified how variation in critical aspects of the
phenomenon that were experienced could be used to account for any particular way
of experiencing something, as well as for differences between ways of experiencing
a phenomenon.

PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS
Phenomenography attempts to identify, formulate and tackle certain types of re-
search questions about learning and understanding in educational environments
(Marton & Booth, 1997). Learning is seen as a change in the learners’ capability of
experiencing a phenomenon in the world around them. It amounts to being able to
discern certain aspects of the phenomenon, and to keep them in focal awareness.
The question that we are interested in is ‘how can we bring about different ways of
experiencing something?’ According to Marton and Booth (1997), certain patterns
of variation characterise certain ways of experiencing a phenomenon. To bring about
a particular way of experiencing a particular phenomenon it is necessary to follow
that very pattern of variation. The object of study is to explore the extent to which
teachers or the instructional methods contribute to constitute the pattern of vari-
ation.
Runesson (1999) used the framework of variation to analyse classroom teaching
and to investigate the different ways that teachers handled the mathematical topic of
‘fractions and percentages’ in Sweden. The results revealed that although teachers
taught the same topic in similar ways, fundamental and systematic differences were
154 Ming Fai Pang

observed in the aspects that teachers focused on, in terms of what they varied and
what they kept invariant. Different teachers focused on and thematised different
aspects of the content, putting other aspects into peripheral awareness, and opened
up different dimensions of variation, which constituted spaces of variation, in order
for students to discern critical aspects of the phenomenon. The implication of the
study was that for learning to take place, teachers should discern the critical aspects
of the phenomena that are being dealt with and of pupils’ learning simultaneously,
against a backdrop of experienced variation of the aspects concerned.
Pang (2002) studied student understanding of a difficult economic concept, the
incidence of a sales tax, in Hong Kong. In line with ‘the first face of variation’ he
found a set of qualitatively different ways of making sense of this concept among
secondary school students. He also identified the critical features which, when
discerned simultaneously, yielded a good of grasp of the concept. According to ‘the
second face of variation’, discerning any of those features amounts to experiencing
variation in a dimension which corresponds to that feature. Pang was able to show
that when simultaneous variation in critical aspects was afforded, twice as many
students reached a good understanding, as did students in other classes where there
was no simultaneous variation in the critical aspects of the object of learning.

CONCLUSIONS
Phenomenography is an ever changing, growing specialisation. The thread that runs
through the phenomenographic movement is an interest in variation, and in order to
understand how the new phenomenography grew out of earlier versions of the very
same research specialisation, we have to recognise the different senses of variation,
which have been the focus of research during different periods.
Phenomenography set out to reveal the different ways in which people experi-
ence the same phenomena in the same situation. The object of research is thus the
qualitatively different ways in which people are aware of the world, and the ways in
which they experience various phenomena and situations around them, wherein the
categories of descriptions and outcome space are instrumental in characterising how
people experience reality. Phenomenography in this sense is descriptive and method-
ologically oriented. The variation between different ways of seeing something is
experienced and described by the researcher.
In recent years there has been a shift in emphasis from a methodological
orientation to theoretical concerns, i.e. from how to describe to what is described,
from the researchers’ description of their experience of variation between different
ways of experiencing various phenomena to researchers’ description of the learners’
experience of variation and thus the simultaneous awareness of the critical aspects
of the phenomenon which define ways of experiencing a certain phenomenon. With
the advance of the ‘theory of variation’, ontological significance has been given to
ways of experiencing something. This affords a theoretical base for studying the
qualitatively different ways of experiencing various phenomena in a dynamic man-
ner. Each of these ways can be understood in terms of experienced variation in the
critical aspects of the phenomenon concerned. The variation is a variation that
 Phenomenography’s Recent Developments 155

corresponds to the critical aspects of the phenomenon, that is, the dimensions of
variation as experienced by the experiencer. The variation is then experienced by the
learner but described by the researcher. Overall, these two senses of variation, which
have been the focus of attention at different times, represent the different facets of
the same object of research in phenomenography.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The author would like to express his heartfelt gratitude to Professor Ference
Marton, Professor Paul Morris and Dr Pong Wing Yan for their valuable comments
on the earlier versions of the manuscript.

NOTE
[1] This paper is a further development of the presentation ‘Two Faces of Variation’ delivered by
Ference Marton and Pang Ming Fai at the 8th Biennial Conference of the European Association
for Research in Learning and Instruction, Göteborg, 1999.

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