Doing Phenomenological Research into Being a Healthcare Student with a Mobile Phone

The chapter describes and develops the phenomenological methodology used in a doctoral project that aimed to explore and convey what it is like to be a healthcare student with a mobile phone that creates a near constant state of connectivity. Contrasting Heidegger’s example of a shoemaker’s hammer with a phone, connectivity renders a student’s life-world horizon permeable, according to their fluctuating capability, priorities, context and disposition. Networked learning’s (NL) earlier definition emphasises “promoting connections”, but smartphones add complexity to the challenge of managing connections, opening the 2020 NL definition notion of “convivial technologies” to critique. A student-plus-phone unit of analysis was conceptualised, informed by educational and actor-network theory, as “mobilage”, to avoid the pitfalls of fascinating on technology or focusing on the agentic informant. Phenomenology informed methods, such as analysis through eidetic reduction, and “mobilage thinking” to deliberately pre-load the researcher’s encounter with the phenomenon, aiming to sensitise data gathering and analysis. Writing vocative vignettes was another key aspect of analysis, with the aim of re-presencing readers in moments of NL. A new analogy is offered: mobilage learning is likened to noticing stray gloves.