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This chapter describes an innovative method of curriculum design that is based on combining phenomenographic research, and the associated variation theory of learning, with the notion of disciplinary threshold concepts to focus specialised design attention on the most significant and difficult parts of the curriculum. The method involves three primary stages: (i) identification of disciplinary concepts worthy of intensive curriculum design attention, using the criteria for threshold concepts; (ii) action research into variation in students’ understandings/misunderstandings of those concepts, using phenomenography as the research approach; (iii) design of learning activities to address the poorer understandings identified in the second stage, using variation theory as a guiding framework. The curriculum design method is inherently theory and evidence based. It was developed and trialed during a two-year project funded by the Australian Learning and Teaching Council, using physics and law disciplines as case studies. Disciplinary teachers’ perceptions of the impact of the method on their teaching and understanding of student learning were profound. Attempts to measure the impact on student learning were less conclusive; teachers often unintentionally deviated from the design when putting it into practice for the first time. Suggestions for improved implementation of the method are discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to describe a pilot learning study (LS) comprising of three biology pre-service teachers (PSTs) in British Columbia, which took place during an initial teacher education (ITE) course and school-based practicum. The study explored PSTs’ learning experiences, and identified conditions that supported and challenged their engagement with the LS discourse.

Drawing from a variety of methods including teacher semi-structured interviews and reflective entries, the PSTs’ experiences of teaching and reflection were described and themes were constructed; course assignments, classroom materials, meeting notes and fieldnotes served triangulation purposes. Variation theory framed the LS and analysis of this case study.

Findings highlight how the PSTs developed comfort with the tension of making mistakes that supported their interpretation of classroom pedagogy and refining of instructional strategies. As the study alluded to how LS is “hard,” the PSTs demonstrated how positive experiences in the course-based cycle sustained their pursuit of learning despite challenges faced in the school-based practicum.

This small-scale study has limited generalizability.

Exposing PSTs to a variety of “mistakes” in ITE and to approach them not merely as ontological objects of pedagogical shortcomings are discussed together with factors that promoted teacher learning.

This study contributes to literature exploring the organization of LS within ITE, as situated in educational contexts where LS is unfamiliar and organizational structures are not readily in place to fully support its implementation.

The purpose of this paper is to address two questions: Can student teachers use variation theory to design and review lessons? Can exposure to variation in designs for lessons with the same intended object of learning develop student teachers understanding of design?

The student teachers were undertaking an English‐medium education degree, a feature of which was peer teaching, with the teachers collaborating planning, teaching and reflecting on lessons. A sample of individual student teachers’ written reflections on the design and effect of 15 lessons involving seven objects of learning was collected and analysed using a comparative method. The lesson designs in terms of the pattern of variation and critical aspects afforded, and the teachers’ evaluations of the lessons, are described.

Four critical cases show how variation in the enacted object of learning created by the student teachers in their lessons, and in the lived object of learning of their students, impacted on the lived object of learning to teach of those student teachers. In the design and enactment of their lessons, student teachers used variation to effect in ten out of 15 lessons taught.

The use of the variation framework appeared to be successful in varying what had previously been invariant for many student teachers, who had themselves been educated in teacher‐centric classrooms. Its use offered a systematic, evidence‐based approach to designing, teaching and reviewing lessons, and, therefore, an opportunity to integrate the roles of teacher and learner in pursuit of the object of learning. By specifying the variation framework as a design tool, and not a method of teaching, the opportunity is opened up for further critical investigation of its usefulness in initial teacher education.

Institutional theory had been developed for the purpose of explaining widespread diffusion, mimetic adoption and institutionalization of organizational practices. However, further extensions of institutional theory are needed to explain a range of different institutional trajectories and organizational responses since institutionalized standards constitute a minority of all diffusing practices. The study presents a theoretical framework which offers guidelines for explaining and predicting various adoption, variation and post-adoption scenarios.

The paper is primarily conceptual in nature, and the arguments are developed based on previous institutional theory and organizational change literature.

The notion of institutional inertia is proposed in order to provide a more detailed explanation of when and why organizations ignore, adopt, modify, maintain and abandon practices and the way intra-organizational institutional pressures shape, direct and constrain these processes. It is specified whether institutional inertia will be temporarily eclipsed or whether it will actively manifest itself during adoption, adaptation and maintaining attempts. The study distinguishes between four institutional profiles of organizational practices – institutionalized, institutionally friendly, neutral and contested practices – which can vary along three dimensions: accuracy, extensiveness and meaning. The variation and post-adoption outcomes for each of them can be completely characterized and predicted by only three parameters: the rate of institutional inertia, institutional profile of these practices and whether they are interpretatively flexible. In turn, an extent of intraorganizational institutional resistance to new practices is determined by their institutional profile and flexibility.

It is expected that proposed theoretical explanations in this paper can offer insights into these empirical puzzles and supply a broader view of organizational and management changes. The study’s theoretical propositions help to understand what happens to organizational practices after they are handled by organizations, thus moving beyond the adoption/rejection dichotomy.

The paper explores and clarifies the nature of institutional inertia and offers an explanation of its manifestation in organizations over time and how it shapes organizational practices in the short and long run. It challenges a popular assumption in organizational literature that fast and revolutionary transition is a prerequisite for successful change. More broadly, the typology offered in this paper helps to explain whether and how organizations can successfully handle and complete their change and how far they can depart from institutional norms.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss two theoretical frameworks, Pirie and Kieren’s work (Pirie and Kieren, 1994) and variation theory of learning (Marton, 2015) in relation to lesson/learning study and mathematics teaching and learning.

The point of departure is the article: “Folding back and growing mathematical understanding: a longitudinal study of learning” (Martin and Towers, 2016) where it is demonstrated how Pirie and Kieren’s work (1994) and particularly the notion “folding-back” can be used as the theoretical framework in lesson/learning study. By dealing with similar arrangements and different theories, the two frameworks are contrasted.

It is suggested that the theory appropriated must be in resonance with the aim and focus of the study the theoretical perspective taken since it has implications for what becomes the focus of the process and subsequently the results of lesson/learning study.

This paper contributes to the discussion about how a more theory-informed lesson study and a broader theoretically framed learning study would improve and change the scope and progress of the two.

The purpose of this paper is to articulate criteria for assessing the quality of lesson and learning studies as forms of practice-based educational action research that are grounded in the practical experience of those engaged in such research.

The paper explores the implications of Stake and Schwandt’s distinction between quality as measured and quality as experienced for assessing lesson and learning studies in higher education contexts, where “standards templates” are increasingly used to measure “quality”. Such templates it is claimed distance research from the action context of teachers’ work. Previously published work, in which the author distils criteria for good educational action research from his own narratives of experience, is then summarised as a basis for conceptualising lesson study as good action research. This poses the issue of whether the use of learning theories to inform lesson study distorts their quality by distancing them from action. The author argues that this does not apply to lesson studies that are informed by Marton and Booth’s theory of variation. In doing so he distils a set of experience-based quality criteria for assessing learning studies, and demonstrates a high degree of congruence between the pedagogical implications of variation theory and Stenhouse’s idea of “teachers as researchers”.

A set of experience-based quality criteria are distilled for assessing what counts as a high-quality learning study report.

The paper creates an alternative view of the relationship between educational research and practice to that which currently dominates academic discourse.

The purpose of this chapter is to investigate students’ qualitatively different ways of understanding the learning object in three undergraduate courses in the discipline of accounting. The theoretical framework of variation theory, a general learning theory, is applied. The lecturers chose a learning object which is investigated under two different teaching conditions – the conventional lecture model and the variational method. Two student groups were identified as a comparison group and a target group, comparable in various relevant parameters. All students took three required accounting courses. In the comparison group, the lecturers used the conventional lecture model and in the target group the variational model. The results indicated significant differences between the two groups’ examination results in the three courses, with students in the target group performing much better. The educational implications and limitations of the study, and areas for further research, are discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to examine what are necessary conditions for learning the concept ABA form, a concept for analysing and composing music, and to discuss how the use of variation theory can contribute to the field of music education research.

The method used is a form of lesson study, but with only one participating teacher. Three cycles are conducted with three small groups of children, aged eight to nine years old.

The main findings are that the learning of ABA form requires first, awareness of the sequential form of the music, second, that the attitude to differences that appear between sequential parts of the music is consciously being re-direct from seen as “failures” to being interesting musical contrasts and third, that attention is being paid to different features within one musical aspect, that sounds (not only looks) different. It is found that a main contribution of applying variation theory to studies in the domain of music is the consideration of a part-whole relationship. When the teacher helps the children to create contrast and at the same time keeps focus on how it sounds, the children succeed in coming up with a composition in ABA form. To address the simultaneous relationship between acting and seeing, that is musical impressions and expressions, is crucial for learning.

This study is pioneering since music teaching is studied with the point of departure in an intended object of learning.

The purpose of this paper is to present a model for supporting and increasing teachers’ reflection process.

The model is grounded in two concepts from variation theory: critical aspects and dimensions of variation. Those concepts are related to the concepts of reflection in-, on- and for-action. Analysis of data allows for determination of what kind of reflection is used in teachers’ professional development (PD) and the teachers’ perceptions of the relevance and usefulness of the PD.

The results show that, using the concepts of critical aspects and dimensions of variation, teachers practiced reflection in-, on- and for-action in a non-dualistic way.

The preliminary results confirm that the teachers change their behaviours, through reflection processes, if they have the opportunity to focus on the object of learning and to use research results found in mathematics education in order to open up dimensions of variation in the identified critical aspects.

The design of algebra modules, according to concepts from variation theory and the reflection process, is the main result of this study. The model used in creating the modules has the potential for supporting and increasing teachers’ reflection process.

A conceptual model of work practice evolution is proposed. The model is conceived as an intermediary between models of reflection, action at work and models of organisational teaching in the classroom. It considers work practices as evolving through confrontations between critical aspects, action in context, reflections in-, on- and for-action. The author advocate that the use of the presented methodology is not only inevitable but also vital to improve teachers’ PD.

The purpose of this paper is to identify teachers’ conceptions of learning study in order to provide the basis for an application of phenomenography/variation theory (PVT) to the improvement of teachers’ learning about learning study.

A phenomenographic study based on semi-structured interviews with 18 beginner teachers of business and economics in England taking part in a learning study during their initial teacher education.

The study identified five conceptions of learning study and five associated critical aspects. Results raise questions about the relationship between the process and instructional design elements of learning study.

The study offers a framework for exploring differences in the quality of learning studies and the relationship between teacher conceptions of learning study and the degree of conceptual change in students in a learning study. It also enables facilitator/researchers to design and manage interventions to develop teacher understanding of learning study that are consistent with the principles of PVT.