Perspectives on using video recordings in conversation analytical studies on learning in interaction

Abstract

Video is currently used in many studies to document the interaction in conversation analytical (CA) studies on learning. The discussion on the method used in these studies has primarily focused on the analysis or the data construction, whereas the relation between data construction and analysis is rarely brought to attention. The aim of this article is to discuss different approaches to data construction that CA studies in and on learning utilize, and how these approaches facilitate different analysis and understandings of learning and cognition from emic, participants', points of view. Three, partly overlapping, thematic approaches can be discerned: (1) setting-centred, (2) participant-centred and (3) content-centred. The underlying interest of the study seems to influence the data construction, which in turn affects what kind of analysis that can be done. There is a considerable variation in which aspects data sets focus on, where an emphasis in data construction on setting, participant or content also seems to project the subsequent analytic emphasis. This relation between data construction and analysis is important to be aware of and to address.

Keywords:

• conversation analysis
• learning
• data construction
• social interaction

Notes

1. Repair is a set of interactional practices through which the ongoing activity is interrupted to attend to trouble(s) in the shared understanding. Repair is used by participants in interaction to maintain and/or restore intersubjectivity so that the ongoing activity can progress (see e.g. Schegloff 2007).

2. CA studies on learning, as well as the points made in this article, are not primarily concerned with categorizing informants and making distinctions on the basis of these categories, such as between children's learning and adults' learning.

3. One of the studies included in Lindwall's (2008) thesis.