A lot of research in education, conducted in different disciplinary perspectives (didactic, linguistic, anthropological, psychological, sociological…) now relies on video recordings, since it is essential that the data documenting teaching and learning practices, whether at school or in other contexts (museums, internships, everyday life experiences, etc.), shall be available.
Video recording has specific features: permanency and transferability of audio and video recorded flux and preservation of the wholeness of collected information. Those features make it possible to realize subtle analysis of players' actions and interactions in context, to study the progressive features of the social context and environments of learning, but also to highlight the various ways and means of communication that are at the heart of the process of knowledge transmission and acquisition and social identity development.
The production, management and analysis of recordings prove to be complex though, and different matters shall arise:
- epistemic matters, (e.g.) concerning the consistency between the issues handled, theoretical constructs and the methodological processes developed, they shall make participants: ponder filming techniques (camera position, shot angles, choice of shots, etc.) depending on the object of study and its theoretical characterisation; wonder how to define observables in relationship with the special features of the video data collected; think about the interconnection of video data with other types of data such as interviews, duplicates, field observations; etc;
- technical matters, in particular, to make sure the recording devices and digital tools chosen to organise and analyse data offer the expected features;
- legal and ethical matters,whendealing with image right issues, the possibility to keep the data collected for a shorter or longer time, the consideration of the notices delivered by ethics committees, etc.
The development of digital tools made it possible for new research practices, based on the increased technical possibilities that enable the circulation of data, to arise: e.g. cross-sectional analysis of a same corpus by researchers with different theoretical and methodological approaches or hybrid corpora (a part of it is collected by a researcher -or a group of researchers- from his own field, the other part is completed by elements collected by other researchers beforehand). The types of instrumentation (databases with indexing systems, software technologies to share analysis and annotations, etc.) and the way researchers shall organise their work to adapt to the new practices represent a key challenge not only for the research in education but also for the Humanities and Social Sciences.
Centred on automatic interdisciplinary exchange and contributions, the thematic School pursues three objectives:
- Make researchers, especially young ones (Phd students and post graduate researchers), think more about the connections between theory, methodology and the specific features of a field of study, and thus work on the possible articulations between theoretical approaches, methodologies, instrumentations and fields of research. Neil Mercer, Carey Jewitt, Baptiste Buob, whose work on education and learning uses video databases in different disciplines or through different methodological and theoretical approaches, will present those articulations.
- Make participants aware of the stakes and methods of cross-sectional analysis of a same corpus. Based on a collective work carried out by SFR-ViSA researchers who deal with different issues and have different theoretical and methodological approaches (Tiberghien et al., 2012), the participants will be proposed a unique experiment of cross-sectional analysis of a same corpus (several small-group workshops).
- Acquire the basic knowledge on a technical level (ability to choose application technologies and audiovisual equipment properly adapted to the specific features of the objects and field of research). and about legal and ethical issues regarding video data creation (database), preservation and sharing between researchers. Participants will be proposed several workshops about those subjects.
Expected consequences
We expect the following to happen after the School:
- Reinforcement of the pre-existing scientific community working with the SFR ViSA, by promoting the entry of new researchers and encouraging them to get involved in the structure, in order to help research communities work on education practices and situations;
- The spread of theoretical knowledge, methodological practices and technical resources passed on during the event through the setting up of training courses on the creation of corpora and video analysis in training courses on research (Master's degree, graduate schools; long-life training).
