This paper presents a novel method, known as the "persona vignette" developed during a doctoral hermeneutical phenomenological study of the lived experiences of educators facilitating higher-order thinking skills (HOTS) in Higher Education (Healey-Benson, 2022). The study employed an interpretive phenomenological approach which aims to understand and interpret participants' experiences (Ary et al., 2006). This is an approach characterized by the lack of formal analytical methods, with the context of the phenomenon dictating how data is analyzed (Langdridge, 2007). The primary objective of the study was to gain an in-depth understanding of the experiences of educators engaged in the phenomenon. To operationalize the research, a 5-part "persona vignette" method was developed by the researcher to capture an interpreted mimetic representation of each of the 12 educator study participants drawn from five countries. The final collection of persona vignettes provides readers with imaginative and evocative stimuli that invite reflection on one's own unique representation and experience of the phenomenon and aims to provide guidance to Higher Education educators of all contexts on the challenges of their HOTS development day-to-day practice

The theoretical framework

The paper is informed by the researcher’s doctoral hermeneutical phenomenological investigation of the lived experiences of educators facilitating HOTS in Higher Education. The study included participants from five countries: Australia, Canada, India, the UK, and the USA. The hermeneutic phenomenological methodology provided "direct access to a solid base of pure knowledge" (McIntosh & Wright, 2019, p. 451) by tapping into people's experiences, while an existential lens provided a focus on relationality, intersubjectivity, and otherness.

To protect participant anonymity while still inviting readers into the disclosed world of the research participants, the researcher developed an imaginative persona vignette framework as a form of interpreted mimesis. In this context mimesis is an act of poiesis, a ‘bringing-forth’ (Heidegger, 1971) rather than imitation. The decision to capture in detail the representation of the variation of the educator experiences was made by the researcher as their 'wholeness' was too rich to omit from the summary findings which were primarily focused on the phenomenological (essential) themes. Consequently, the researcher resolved to consider the hermeneutic 'mimetic dimensions' of the individual stories as means to bring a form of "evocation of experience in its reflection of and distinction to reality" (Gosetti-Ferencei, 2014, p. 4). The researcher worked with an illustrator to enhance the evocative quality of the personas, a process fully informed by the ongoing analytic process and refined through a series of conversations and iterations. The resultant persona illustrations help attune to the voice of the participants in the transcripts and to surface details that may otherwise be overlooked or taken for granted.

The persona vignette format is a five-part structure that includes a bespoke imaginative persona label that captures the life-world of the participant HE educator, an opening statement that reflects the overarching ontological experience of the phenomenon, a persona image drawn by a professional illustrator to bring the participant's lifeworld evocatively to life, an anecdote formed by a collection of selected and edited quotes from the original transcript, and a succinct researcher interpretative analysis. The 'persona vignette' format blends anecdote, metaphor, and imagery aiming to bring the wholeness of the lived experience to life, to share the nuances of contextualized experiences to re-presence and provoke further thinking and action. The researcher aims to "illuminate and evoke lived meanings beyond immediate tangible experience" (Nicol, 2008) by drawing on interview transcripts of metaphor descriptions and emotionally expressive language.

Vignettes, written or visual, are often used during data collection as a tool to elicit responses, foster conversation, and explore participants' perceptions, emotions, opinions, attitudes, and values related to the research topic of interest (Skilling & Stylianides, 2020). They are useful for gaining deeper insights into participants' beliefs and attitudes and useful in allowing certain kinds of questions to be asked without imposing any viewpoints (Richard & Mercer, 2002). The persona vignette method crafted for this study combines the disciplines of van Manen's Phenomenology of Practice, Heideggerian, and Gadamerian philosophy and makes use of imagery, metaphor, and anecdote to evoke the lived experiences of a shared phenomenon. The researcher used van Manen's phenomenological heuristic reduction (2014) as a guide in their analysis of audio-recorded interview transcripts. This hermeneutic phenomenological method involves the use of two reductions, the epoché-reduction and the reduction-proper.The researcher specifically focused on identifying evocative metaphor descriptions and expressive language in the transcripts to "illuminate and evoke lived meanings beyond immediate tangible experience" (Nicol, 2008). From 1-2 hours of transcribed text, individual participant experiences were shaped into one-page interpreted summaries which allowed for persona identities to show themselves. This approach was aligned with Gadamer’s view of mimesis as a phenomenological act (1975) and made clear the “created personas would be seen not as imitating an objective reality, but…a creation to foreground a lived experience” (Hardwicke & Riemer, 2018, p. 3). The persona vignette illustrations were developed in collaboration with a professional illustrator, Vanessa Damianou, to provide a visual representation of the participants' lived experiences. These illustrations are not a literal depiction of the participants' physical appearance, but rather an embodiment of the researcher's interpretation of the participants' experiences, emotions, and feelings. They are an imaginative representation of the participant's subjective experiences and provide a holistic understanding. Informed by the researcher’s draft vignette material and digital images made from icons and clipart, and through detailed researcher/illustration conversations and several iterations, a set of original persona illustrations were drawn to evoke the presence of each of the participants. The method produced 12 persona vignettes which were an evocative capture of the interpreted mimetic representation of each of the 12 participants. Furthermore, as a collection, they invite readers to personally reflect on their own experience of the phenomenon and to consider their own unique representation of their current or aspired persona.

This paper describes the use of the persona vignette method in a hermeneutic phenomenological study of higher education (HE) educators. The method, which was developed in compliance with ethical commitments and collaborated with a professional illustrator, allows for a deeper understanding of the subjective experiences of educators and how individual differences shape their perceptions and interpretations. Each persona vignette brings the wholeness of the lived experience to life and shares the nuances of the contextualized experiences to re-presence and provoke further thinking and action. The vignettes present a paradox by evoking individuality while highlighting common themes among participants' experiences of the phenomenon. The study shows that the persona vignette method provides a deeper understanding of educators' subjective experiences and how individual differences shape their perceptions and interpretations. Unlike traditional typology methods, which focus on objective characteristics and fail to capture individual complexities and nuances, the persona vignette emphasises that individuals cannot be reduced to predetermined categories. The persona vignette method has provided a way to investigate the phenomenon of HOTS development facilitation among HE educators in different countries, providing structure to discussion on aspects of HOTS development work that may be difficult to express. The study has revealed insight that has made a valuable contribution to the existing literature on HOTS development with implications for the preparation, guidance, and support of higher education educators in their day-to-day practices. The paper presents specific examples of research insights and also addresses the limitations and areas for future research. Ongoing research examines the practical uses of persona vignettes as prompts for practice, reflection, and discussion for educators and educational management. Overall, the method may be adapted for use in other research contexts and can contribute to a deeper understanding of the complexities of teaching and learning in higher education across the world.

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