Possibilities and Pitfalls: Using video
in the data collection and analysis
phases of research
Associate Professor Julie Dunn
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).
• 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.
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!
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.
• 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’.
• 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 GoldmanSegall’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.
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.
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.”
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:
G:
With all these costumes around, this house must have
belonged to some actors.
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.
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.
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”
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.
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
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.
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’.
Value of co-analysis dialogues?
•
•
•
•
Seeing ‘other’
Collective Identity
Collaborative Creativity
A Layered Report
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”.
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.
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.
Your experiences??
Questions??
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
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Goldman-Segall, R. 1998. Points of viewing children’s thinking: A digital ethnographer’s
journey. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
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
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Pink, S. 2006. Doing visual ethnography: images, media and representations in
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Pomerantz, A. 2005. Using participants' video stimulated comments to
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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
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