Critical reflexive phenomenography in a study abroad context: Navigating Arab sojourners' international academic experiences in Britain

This chapter examines the importance of a reflexive approach and its implementation in a project on the lived experiences of eight Arab university students undertaking a master’s degree at a UK university. This longitudinal, phenomenographic study started from the participants’ learning of English in their home countries up to their experiences in the UK over one year, which included a pre‐sessional course, their master’s courses, and their dissertation writing. Through a socio‐dynamic lens, this phenomenographic study explored the challenges the students faced, their strategies for coping with these challenges, and how their future visions helped motivate them throughout each leg of their journey. In research of this nature, it is essential for researchers to adopt the strategy of critical self-reflexivity to consider issues from multiple perspectives rather than limit themselves to a single orientation. Hence, reflexive phenomenography that emphasises ‘a process of reflexivity’ or ‘selective bracketing’ (Adawi et al., 2001) was implemented, by identifying the conceptual understanding throughout the whole research undertaking and looking for ways to avoid steering the data and analysis along pre-conceived paths. The researcher was also continuously mindful of any assumptions and judgments that might influence the data collection and the meaning-making process.