Assumptions and conclusions about learning are central to research-based claims related to both teaching and learning. Suggestions and solutions arising from research are necessarily limited to the goals and approaches in which the research is embedded. Impact as a criteria for assessing the quality and value of research attempts to bridge the gap between research and practice. Yet both worlds share in common the situatedness of their activities. If we agree that each situation is unique and non-recurring, how can research into learning come to any reliable conclusion? How can researchers in relation to policy makers and practitioners propose robust suggestions or even solutions that will be relevant to the unknown and unforeseeable situations in which practitioners will find themselves?

This presentation will present insights gained from the phenomenologically oriented learning research conducted at the University of Innsbruck in a grant-funded research project and explore the challenges implied in the above questions. Learning understood as experience requires both teachers and researchers to attend to their experience of the experience of others in order to capture data about the effects of teaching as they occur. The unique and non-recurring situations in which these experiences occur pose a dilemma, both in regard to how valid conclusions can be drawn by practitioners as well as how valid claims can be made by researchers, particularly when they are asked to make suggestions or propose solutions that should have an impact on policy design or practice. We will argue that the phenomenon of learning is beyond the reach of teaching and that this radically determinate factor must be recognized and addressed if education research is to have a meaningful impact on policy and practice.

Schratz, M., Westfall-Greiter, T. & Schwarz, J. F. (in print). “Beyond the Reach of Teaching and Measurement: Methodology and Initial Findings of the Innsbruck Vignette Research”. Journal of Latinamerican Educational Research. Schratz, M., Schwarz, J.F. & Westfall-Greiter, T. (2012). Lernen als bildende Erfahrung. Innsbruck: Studia Verlag.