The use of video technology to enhance research capacity to meet scientific and moral criteria for evaluation for discursive psychological studies in education

The purpose of this paper is to justify and reflect upon the way in which video technologies were employed in data generation for a study of student agency in a science classroom using discursive psychology. The research was designed with the purpose of providing new understanding of how students develop a sense of themselves as responsible agents in secondary science classrooms. The study drew upon discursive psychology for this purpose, and attended to the social meaning made relatively determinate in participants' conversations. An instrumental case study was developed from video recordings of a science classroom in action and video-stimulated interviews with the research participants. The scientific and moral criteria for evaluation underlying the research is explained in the paper. Phonological transcripts were generated as the primary data source for the study. The analysis, including the production of the phonological transcripts, is explained and an example of the report is provided to reflect upon the importance of the video technology for meeting the scientific and moral criteria for evaluation of discourse-based research in education. By making the criteria for evaluation explicit and reflecting upon the enhanced capacities of researchers to meet these criteria using video technology, the paper contributes to the theme of the symposium of “researcher practice in the generation of data for educational research using video-based research design”.