Looking at new ways to capture video data
We are currently engaged in the project Interaction, Dementia and Engagement in the Arts for Lifelong Learning (IDEAL), funded by the UKRI.
For this piece of research, we have turned to the use of a 360 Degree camera, to supplement the GoPro Hi-Res cameras and external audio recorders that we have previously used for data capture.
Whereas studies of naturally occurring social interaction – drawing on the approaches developed in Ethnomethodological Conversation Analysis and Context Analysis – have over recent decades gradually exchanged audio recordings for video, our research project developed additional capture methods by employing 360 degree video technology in addition to conventional audio and video data collection.
The resulting video recordings have been subsequently processed with 360 Degree video software (Insta360) to output video data that allows for the research team to track particular participants or groups of participants. This in turn also has allowed for the resulting video data to be incorporated into transcription linking software tools (in our case CLAN and ELAN) to allow for transcription to be fully integrated and temporally aligned with the video-files, crucial for making the analysis suitably robust.
Changes from before
In earlier research, we positioned cameras on the outside of the particular interactions from which we were generating our data. This is the conventional practice for data collection in video ethnographic studies of naturally occurring social interaction.
Although this does allow for much of the conduct of participants to be captured as video data, even where multiple cameras are deployed, the researcher is only ever able to capture multiple limited views of the participants’ communicative resources drawn on in their interactions. In the current study, we turned to 360 Degree video technology to be able to capture the data from inside the interaction, including the fine grained interactional work produced by such facial features as facial gestures, gaze conduct and head positioning, or the work of the various members’ hands as they coordinate their work around the creative objects of the work-at-hand in these workshops.
This interaction-internal view has proved to be transformative in what we have been able to observe and analyse, especially in terms of how participants coordinate the various communicative resources for managing intersubjectivity, for example in how the participants living with dementia are able to be guided in the activities, and how they are able to draw on resources beyond the linguistic to communicate their understanding or lack of.
For further information or consultation on the use of such technology for data capture of naturally occurring social interaction, please contact the team.