’EENY, MEENY, MINY, MOE, (HOW TO?) CATCH A TIGER BY THE TOE’ Visual Research Methodologies in Educational Sciences Post-Doctoral Fellow Jaakko Hilppö Faculty of Educational Sciences University of Helsinki Faculty of Educational Sciences � 1 Kasvatustieteellinen tiedekunta � 2 WHO AM I? ASPIRATIONS AND OUTLINES • Educational psychologist, class teacher, early education and care researcher, amanuensis, singer, • Goal 1: How to use visual methods to study experiences? runner, husband, father, bass player… • Children’s agency, sense of agency, learning • Ethnography, interactional analysis, participatory methods, • Goal 2: How to study the use of visual tools as part of ethnomethodology research activities? • CHAT / socio-cultural theory Kasvatustieteellinen tiedekunta Kasvatustieteellinen tiedekunta � 3 � 4
THE PROBLEM: THE SOLUTION: HOW DO CHILDREN EXPERIENCE THEIR AGENCY? CO-PARTICIPATORY VISUAL RESEARCH • Children’s experiences of their agency have not been studied • Materializing experiences with photographs • Its importance was acknowledged, but children’s experience of their agency was • Reification is ‘the process of giving form to our experience by producing objects not studied in itself (e.g. Barton & Tan 2010; Bjerke 2011; Markström & Halldén that congeal this experience into “thingness”. In so doing, we create points of focus 2009; Rainio 2008 around which the negotiation of meaning becomes organized [...] Any community of practice produces abstractions, tools, symbols, stories, terms and concepts that • Experiences of one’s agency are cumbersome grasp for further reflection whilst being reify something of that practice in a congealed form’ (Wenger 1998, pp. 58–59). engaged at the same time (e.g., Lipponen, et al. 2016). • In practice: • Without an explicit focus on these experiences and some way to retain them, • “Take photos or draw pictures of your “moments of joy” (ilon hetki, in Finnish) agentic moments can easily slip past in the continual flow of experience (Stone et al., 2000; Valsiner 2001; Roth & Jornet 2014). during you preschool day.” • Visual methods were part of the preschool’s own pedagogical culture Kasvatustieteellinen tiedekunta � 5 Kasvatustieteellinen tiedekunta � 6 ANALYSIS AND (PART OF) THE RESULTS: image redacted image redacted Modality Theoretical description Modalities of agency are discursive tools with • to want what the actor wants to do; which individual positions themselves as actors motivation, goals and aspirations in relation to certain activity or situation to know the knowledge and know- Greimas & Porter, 1977; Fontanille, 2006 how of the actor. to be able the physical abilities and limitations of the actor have to a must, something that the actor has to do to feel, character’s ability to feel image redacted experience, and experience appreciate to have the indicating possibilities to do possibility something in a given situation Kasvatustieteellinen tiedekunta � 8
“ICE STICKS IN THE AIR” “ICE STICKS IN THE AIR” • Joanne: So, tell us why did you want to take this kind of picture? • Anna: Well ‘cos I thought the air felt like super fun and kinda like playful and there’s no other top spot and I read that you can’t take any photo’s of air ‘cos its invisible so then I took a photo of those ice sticks --- • Joanne: Now that you said it we sure can see little that there is also a little bit of air like in the photo although it is invisible. • Anna: It looks like it has the most air in it. • Joanne: Mmm-m. Everything in between is air. True. • Anna: Its almost like the air would go through those ice sticks and like its all dark like it was the air that (unclear, points at screen) Kasvatustieteellinen tiedekunta � 9 Kasvatustieteellinen tiedekunta � 10 “ICE STICKS IN THE AIR” WHAT DID THE KIDS SAY? • Joanne: So, tell us why did you want to take this kind of picture? • Taking pictures and drawing was “fun”, “It felt good and nice”, “It was titanic” • Anna: Well ‘cos I thought the air felt like super fun and • Also, sharing the pictures with others was fun kinda like playful and there’s no other top spot and I read that you can’t take any photo’s of air ‘cos its invisible so then I took a photo of those ice sticks • “When I am older, I will join your research group.” • Ideas for alternative ways of “moments of joy”: • Performing, playing or writing To know how to To feel Modalities Kasvatustieteellinen tiedekunta Kasvatustieteellinen tiedekunta � 11 � 12
BUT WAIT! ALL VERY NICE, BUT WHAT ROLE PROBLEM NO. 2: DID THE PICTURES PLAY? HOW ARE VISUAL MEANS USED IN PRACTICE? • Drawings and photographs are commonly used in research with children (e.g. Angell et al., 2014; Christensen and James 2008; Fargas-Malet et al., 2010; Thomson 2008). • Yet, while the importance of visual tools is often well grounded, the way in which children or adults use them as mediational means is seldom discussed or presented in detail . ➡ a substantial methodological opportunity was missed ! (e.g., Angell et al., 2014; Radley 2010; Tisdall and Punch 2012) • If the the way in which the method impacts the results is not scrutinized, how can we be sure they work? Kasvatustieteellinen tiedekunta � 13 Kasvatustieteellinen tiedekunta � 14 SOLUTION NO.2: SOLUTION NO.2: OPENING THE BLACK BOX WITH ’EIA’ UNBOXING IN PRACTICE • Saying that visual (im/explicitly) mediate children’s telling is not enough • Both are helpful conceptual tools, but remains at the level of a general categorical distinction • Working with the same dataset as before, I re-analyzed the data by following an embodied interactional analysis (EIA) workflow (Erickson 2006; Goodwin 2000; • According to Goodwin (2000), any action is constituted by a complex arrangement of multiple Jordan and Henderson 1995) semiotic fields (e.g. gestures, the body, and spoken language) that are deployed simultaneously and which elaborate on each other. • 1. Content logs of all interactions, verbal and nonverbal in the videos • Teacher’s use of a black board or child’s use of a photograph • an episode based description of joint interaction between participants and the • The moment-to-moment arrangement of these various semiotic fields is called a contextual materiality of the setting configuration • Non-theoretical, participant perspective answer to the question ”what is going • During the course of an action, new semiotic fields can be brought in and old ones treated as on?” irrelevant, depending on present purposes. As a result, the contextual configuration • this meant going through the previous transcripts and adding gestures, pauses, changes. tones of voice, the use of different materials as part of the transcript • If an image is relevant for telling about your experience, it is used somehow by the participants as part of that action Kasvatustieteellinen tiedekunta Kasvatustieteellinen tiedekunta � 15 � 16
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