This workshop engages participants to gain multi-perspective insights into the “Innsbruck Vignette Research”, a phenomenologically oriented approach to learning research being conducted at the University of Innsbruck, Austria, within the frame of national grant-funded research project still in progress. The research focuses rigorously on the learning experience itself, with primary interest in learning in statu nascendi, which tends to lead a shadowy existence (Mitgutsch 2008) in research as well as teaching. Understanding learning as experience (Meyer-Drawe, 2008; 2010) rather than learning as a product out of experience, the challenge for researchers was how to capture possible learning experiences while in the field. The vignette is a means of capturing in words the researcher’s experience of the experience of others (Schratz et al., 2012; Schwarz et al, in press; Westfall-Greiter & Schwarz in press). Initially inspired by van Manen’s “anecdotes of lived experience” (1990), the text form has evolved along with the opening and deepening of the phenomena in the data. The vignette is a “thick description” (Geertz, 1973) revealing the pathic qualities of a tangible moment perceived by the researcher. Researchers must be mindful that the selection of these moments is an act of signification driven by their own directed attention, which might change while working with the data (protocols, conversations, photos, documents).

Geertz, C. (1973). The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected essays. New York: Basic Books. Meyer-Drawe, K. (2008). Diskurse des Lernens. Munich: Fink. Meyer-Drawe, K. (2010). Zur Erfahrung des Lernens. Eine phänomenologische Skizze. In: Santalka: Filosophia vol.18, n. 3, pp. 6-16. Schratz, M., Schwarz, J.F.; & Westfall-Greiter, T. (2012). Lernen als bildende Erfahrung. Vignetten in der Praxisforschung. Innsbruck: StudienVerlag. Schwarz, J.F., Schratz, M., & Westfall-Greiter, T. (in press). Was sich zeigt und wie. Lernseits offenen Unterrichts. In: Zeitschrift für interpretative Schul- und Unterrichtsforschung. Westfall-Greiter, T. & Schwarz, J.F. (in press). Planning for the Unplannable. Responding to (un)articulated calls in the classroom. In: Phenomenology & Practice. Van Manen, M. (1990). Researching Lived Experience. Human science for an action sensitive pedagogy. London, Ontario: Althouse Press.