Video, reflection and transformation: action research in vocational education and training in a European context

Abstract

Many of us in higher education are under pressure to make our courses more efficient by creating new forms of delivery and many of these are usually media, particularly computer, based. As The Open University (OU) has blazed the trail with text and video-based courses there is a model to follow for those wishing to use the same media for such a purpose. This paper reports the efforts of one group of trainers who used video to record and analyse their practice in an action research project which also undertook to develop distance learning modules. The master's degree materials were to include text and related video programmes, though not in the OU fashion. The production of the video programmes was based on, and sometimes used, the materials the vocational trainers had shot. Inevitably, with hindsight, the production requirements vied with the research–development tasks: the need for linear programming almost swamped the need for exploration and experiment. However, the story reveals some of the strengths as well as some of the pitfalls of using video in such ways.