Possibilities and Pitfalls: Using video in the data collection and analysis phases of research

1. Possibilities and Pitfalls: Using video in the data collection and analysis phases of research Associate Professor Julie Dunn

2. Video in Qualitative Research • Video recordings captured during live action or within interview situations may be a data source • Video recordings may also be used within interviews (video stimulated recall) or within focus group sessions (video cued multi-vocal ethnography).

3. In video-cued multi-vocal ethnography it is the responses of participants to the video (who are usually outside the original action) that form the data set. • Tobin (2004, p.129) suggests that this approach creates a “widening circle of voices” who are all commenting on the same visual text.

4. All good…but there are pitfalls and problems with using video in research Marinis (1985) has described video recordings of live drama as being, ‘respectful forgeries’ or, at best, ‘faithful betrayals’. The same can be said for video captured within research contexts – especially classrooms!

5. Britzman (1991, p. 13) claims however that this is not only true of video, but of all accounts which attempt a retelling. She believes that: The retelling of another’s story is always a partial telling, bound by one’s perspectives, but also by the exigencies of what can and cannot be told. The narratives of lived experience – the story, or what is told – are always selective, partial and in tension.

6. Pink suggests (2007 , p.140) that visual ethnographies ‘are always representations of the subjective standpoints of the image producer and other viewers including informants’. • Erickson (2008, p. 177) reminds us that no matter how many cameras are used or where they are pointed, they do not ‘perceive as actively, as prehensively as contemporary cognitive psychology shows that humans do in their ordinary processes of seeing and learning’.

7. Hall (2000, p.659) also suggests that video data records tend to ‘show just those parts of interaction we already find interesting and little more’. • Importantly, we should also heed Goldman-Segall’s (1998) advice about holding the camera at waist height so as to ensure that we are observing the action ‘live’ rather than through the mediation of the camera lens.

8. Will more cameras help? • To overcome these issues at the collection phase, more cameras might help, but they also might hinder. • In a current ARC funded project I am working on, we are trialing the use of Go Pro cameras in tandem with a hand held camera to gain two perspectives and higher quality sound.

9. More problems…. • Most commonly, video data is seen only by the researcher and/or participants, with most research reports offering written transcriptions of the events originally recorded (although DVD appendices are growing in popularity…but are highly dependent upon ethics approval). • The authenticity of these transcripts is highly dependent upon the skills of the transcriber and their ability to capture the action and offer a sense of “being there.”

10. An example from my PhD! All of the girls are now picking up the objects which they had placed in the attic. Susan places a gold ribbon around her shoulders and someone comments, “Beautiful”. Gillian puts an archbishop’s hat on her head and declares that she is the Pope. Lots of things are happening all at the same time. Renee finds the scroll and Susan comes over to help her read it. Sus: With all these costumes around, this house must have belonged to some actors. G: Just sit down…..let’s try and work out what the scroll says. They sit in a small circle and Sarah holds up a glass cylinder filled with water and gold foil pieces. Tanya has put the fur collar on and as Sarah holds up the cylinder, Tanya leaps to her feet.

11. T: Excuse me, what are you doing with my gold? (Her voice is very posh and much older. She has been transformed into a person from the past.) Sar: I found it, it’s not yours. T: (Hands on hips, again in the same voice) It’s mine alright! I am a very rich woman! R: (Dons a black jacket, and in a very deep voice announces) Honey, I’m home! Sus: (Catches on to what is happening and dons the crown, a small mask and a gold ribbon) Good to see you my dear.

12. Does the answer lie in the analysis? • Sawyer (2006) has outlined a notion of collaborative creativity or “group genius”. • Lee and Gregory (2008) suggest, within the field of research, “the value added by collegial collaboration, as well as the steps and approaches that contribute to its success have only been thinly described in the literature”

13. One example! • Armstrong and Curran (2006) made use of StudioCode software and Lesh and Lehrer’s (2000) model of iterative video tape analysis cycles to develop a collaborative research project that involved the two researchers and four classroom teachers. The study was aimed at investigating learning and teaching episodes that made use of interactive whiteboards.

14. My first attempt at avoiding the Pitfalls! • Inspired by Goldman-Segall’s (1998) now famous use of multi-logues within her research. In this pioneering work she offered her research data to a worldwide audience via the internet. • However, I wanted the collaboration to be TALK CENTRED – for the collaboration to create spoken conversation rather than more WRITTEN TEXT

15. Co-analysis Dialogues • Provided the opportunity to clarify my own thoughts about what I had seen and experienced • Respond to questions regarding individual players • Justify preliminary conclusions I had reached • Deepen my theoretical perspectives through conversation • Look harder…to see the ‘other’ – the material that the video camera had recorded, but that I hadn’t seen.

16. Conversations…. • According to Taylor et al (1996, cited in Hardy, Lawrence and Grant, 2005, p. 4) conversations ‘exist in a recursive relationship in which existing discourses provide resources to actors who engage in conversations that in turn produce, reproduce and transform those discourses’.

17. Value of co-analysis dialogues? • Seeing ‘other’ • Collective Identity • Collaborative Creativity • A Layered Report

18. Collective Identity • As we talked, we created a common/shared and emerging language. • This developed as a result of my reading of the literature and previous analysis steps, creating what Hardy, Lawrence and Grant (2005) describe as a “collective identity”.

19. Julie: Tanya is really enjoying choreographing this piece. And she is ignoring the fact that the other two are behaving in a non-naturalistic manner. She has chosen that and is dealing with it as she can… Paul: Yes, she’s not actually taking them on…a drama teacher would stop the action and ask them what they were doing. Julie: No, she’s living with it. Why, because if she takes them on, she destroys the illusion. She has to live with it otherwise the illusion is lost. If she says to them, “Stop doing that, stop fooling around and model sensibly”, there is likely to be a disagreement and the illusion will be lost. It is not real anymore! Paul: She could take them on in-role! She could say, “This agency doesn’t have time for models who muck around”. Julie: I think she chooses to live with it though because it is too risky to do that. Paul: Right, she doesn’t know what they will do. They might destroy the drama. The drama illusion is fragile enough without risking that.

20. Julie: Something exciting is happening over at the painting and Susan needs to be over there to play her Doubting Thomas role. She’s got plenty of other roles she can play from within the first level... Paul: Or other functions? Julie: Yes, and her function is to be the Doubting Thomas, so if Sarah sees something moving in the painting, she’s got to be over there, because that is her function. Now Gillian is conspicuous by her absence.

21. Your experiences?? Questions??

22. References Armstrong, V. and Curran, S. 2006. Developing a collaborative model of research using digital video. Computers & Education. 46, no. 3: 336-348. Britzman, D. 1991. Practice makes practice: A critical study of learning to teach. New York: University of New York Press. De Marinis, M. 1985. A faithful betrayal of performance: Notes on the use of video in theatre. New Theatre Quarterly. 1, no.4: 383-389. Erickson, F. 2006. Definition and analysis of data from videotape: Some research procedures and their rationales. In Handbook of complementary methods in education research, ed. J. Green, G. Camilli and P. Elmore, 177-192. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Goldman, R. and Dong, C. 2008. Linking POV-ing theory to multimedia representations of teaching, learning, research in the age of social networking. In Learning and instructional technologies for the 21st century: Visions of the future. ed. L. Moller, 119-129. Dordecht: Springer. Goldman-Segall, R. 1998. Points of viewing children’s thinking: A digital ethnographer’s journey. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Hall, R. 2000. Video recording as theory. In Handbook of research design in mathematics and science education. ed. D. Lesh & A. Kelly, 647-664. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Hardy, C., Lawrence, T. and Grant, D. 2005 Discourse and collaboration: The role of conversations and collective identity. Academy of management review. 30 no.1: 58-77

23. Lassiter, L. 2005. The Chicago guide to collaborative ethnography. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lee, B. and Gregory, D. 2008. Not alone in the field: Distance collaboration via the internet in focused ethnography. International journal of qualitative methods. 7, no. 3: 30-46. Lesh, D. and Lehrer, R. 2003. Models and modeling perspective on the development of students and teachers. Mathematical Thinking and Learning. 5, no. 2: 109-129. Pink, S. 2006. Doing visual ethnography: images, media and representations in research. London: Sage. Pomerantz, A. 2005. Using participants' video stimulated comments to complement analyses of interactional practices. In Conversation and cognition, ed. H. Molder and J. Potter, 93-113. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sawyer, R.K. 2007. Group Genius: The Power of Collaborative Creativity. New York: Basic Books. Tobin, J. 2004. Kotmatsudani then and now: continuity and change in a Japanese preschool. Contemporary issues in early childhood. 5, no. 2: 128-144.