E-Research in Educational Contexts

The roles of technologies, ethics and social media

Jocelyn Wishart, Michael Thomas

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9780367075774
• eBook ISBN: 9781315388601
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

This book explores the impact of e-research in education and the opportunities presented by a new generation of research approaches and tools. 'E-research' is an umbrella term that encompasses all digital research methods used for data collection and analysis including those involving handheld mobile devices. This is a current concern as the emergence of online tools that enable people to collaborate, create, and share information has led to the widespread use of these new digital research methods. Indeed, new tools and technologies are emerging almost daily and are being taken up by researchers for their ease of data collection and analysis.

As a result the book investigates the implications of how we conceptualise educational research in the digital age. In addressing a range of key themes, from the ethics of e-research to the relationships between researchers and participants, the book presents original studies from a variety of educational contexts where digital tools are being used, and should be of value to postgraduate students, academic researchers, and policy makers. This book was originally published as a special issue of the International Journal of Research & Method in Education.

Capturing children’s knowledge-making dialogues in Minecraft

Marina Wernholm^a and Sylvi Vigmo^b

^aDepartment of Education, The Linnaeus University, Kalmar, Sweden; ^bDepartment of Education, Communication and Learning, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden

The aim of this article is to address how online tools and digital technologies can influence data collection opportunities. We are still at the early stages of piecing together a more holistic picture of the role of digital media in young people’s everyday lives, especially regarding digital gaming among younger children. Digital technologies have enabled both new ways of gaming together and the possibility of capturing children’s everyday knowledge-making dialogues in a non-institutionalized digital environment. In this case study, the online tool FRAPS^®, which enables players to record their play sessions while gaming was used to address data collection opportunities. By using this tool, the lifeworlds of children could be displayed through their knowledge-making dialogues, which also captured the resources the children use when they collaboratively played Minecraft. The analysis draws on peer learning and on Vygotsky’s notions of object-regulation, other-regulation and self-regulation. The results show that language was a resource when the children collaboratively played, Minecraft^® online, as enabling other-regulation. Other resources of importance connected to language use were digital tools and artefacts, such as computers, headsets, Skype and smartphones, object-regulation. The children’s previous knowledge and experiences from their ordinary lifeworld used in the game also became resources. The resources can also be built into the game and regarded as affordances. The children already know how many of these affordances are used, self-regulation, and external assistance did not seem necessary.

Introduction

The beginning of the twenty-first century has been called the age of digitalization (Takahasi 2010, 2). Researchers are still seeking to make sense of the role of Internet in a changing world (Markham and Baym 2009). Our values and norms concerning public participation, literacy and education are being challenged by a rapidly shifting landscape of media and communication in which children are central actors (Ito et al. 2009). Young people’s relationships with digital technology are still under discussion, regarding benefits (Buckingham 2006; Selwyn 2009; Thorne, Fischer, and Lu 2012) as well as fears (Brandtzaeg and Stav 2004; Wartella and Jennings 2010). There are fears of children losing their childhood and becoming passive and isolated due to the use of computer games and other media technologies (Brandtzaeg et al. 2004; Lindahl and Folkesson 2012). There are, however, other arguments raised, for example, that many play activities nowadays take place in digital online environments, the children’s new playground (Linderoth, Björk, and Olsson 2014). Miller and Horst (2012), refer to Boellstorff who argues that online worlds are simply another arena, alongside offline worlds, for expressive practice and that no one arena is privileged over the other.

During the last decade, digital gaming has become increasingly popular, for example, games played via screens like those on computers or portable devices (Bennerstedt 2013). Digital gaming activities and practices have their own unique characteristics, and new ways of gaming together have been established (Bennerstedt 2013). These particular ways of gaming are of interest in this study since the activity takes place in non-institutionalized digital environments. Thorne, Black, and Sykes (2009) argue that what occurs online, outside of instructed educational settings, involves extended periods of language socialization, adaptation and creative semiotic work that illustrate vibrant communicative practices. At the same time, due to technological mediation, our everyday linguistic and social practices undergo significant shifts (Thorne, Black, and Sykes 2009). However, in order to fully understand the lifeworlds of children, researchers must turn to a variety of settings; home, online and together with other children. That means moving into more private spheres compared with doing educational ethnography (Mackay 2005).

Aim

The aim of this article is to address how online tools and digital technologies can influence data collection opportunities. In this case study, the online tool FRAPS^®, which enables players to record their play sessions while playing Minecraft^®, will be used to address data collection opportunities. Minecraft^® is a multiplayer sandbox construction game focused on creativity, building and survival and can be played on multiplayer servers and single-player worlds across multiple game modes. The following questions are of interest: How can FRAPS^® be used to collect data when researching children’s knowledge-making dialogues? How can the resources the children use when they collaboratively play Minecraft^® be captured?

Research overview

Ethnography – yesterday and today?

An ethnographer is always in need for a gatekeeper in order to gain access to the field (Cohen, Manion, and Morrison 2009; Walford 2008a). Gaining access is one of the most problematic aspects when it comes to conducting ethnography research and can only proceed where access has been achieved (Walford 2008a, 2008b). Adler and Adler (1996) point to one of the advantages they experienced by using their own children as gatekeepers. Their membership role in the community to which their children belonged, offered them a naturalness and ease of access, which they would not otherwise have had. The same experience was found in this case study. However, community itself is a concept that is widely used in different contexts and the definition therefore has become quite blurred and widely debated (Guimaraes 2005; Kozinets 2010). In this case study, Minecraft players using the same server are regarded as a community.

There are difficult issues in the area of ethnographic research, to mention some of them; how ethnographers define the spatial and temporal boundaries of what they study; how they determine the context that is appropriate for understanding it, in what senses ethnography can be – or is – virtual rather than actual (Hammersley 2006). However, Hammersley emphasizes the importance of studying at first hand what people do and say in a particular context. Walford (2008b) claims that an ethnographer does not seek the unusual, rather writes about the routine daily lives of people. This case study aims to keep to the essence of ethnography, as expressed by Hammersley (2006, 11) as ‘the tension between trying to understand people’s perspectives from the inside while also viewing them and their behavior more distantly’. According to Walford (2008b), ethnographers stress that they move within social worlds, and in order to understand the behaviour, values and meaning of any group, ethnographers must take their cultural context into account. The word culture in relation to ethnography can be understood as: ‘A culture is made up of certain values, practices, relationships and identifications’ (Walford 2008b, 7). We apply the following definition of context in this article: ‘Context refers not just to space and time but also to the various parameters of human interaction with digital technologies, which form part of material practice’ (Miller and Horst 2012, 27). The cultural context in this case study is Minecraft^®.

In earlier years, fieldwork took place over a long period of time (Hammersley 2006). Fieldwork today, however, is more likely to last weeks rather than years due to various factors, for example, the shortening of contracts for researchers employed on particular projects and an increasing pressure on academics for productivity. Another factor of importance is the use of audio- and video-recording devices that can produce very large amounts of data material quite rapidly (Hammersley 2006). The online tool FRAPS^®1 was used in this case study to capture the knowledge-making dialogues. A more specific issue to be discussed is whether there can be such a concept as Internet or virtual ethnography. In the case of virtual ethnography all the data are commonly available and collected online without meeting people face to face. Studies of communities online take a particular social or communal phenomenon as their focal area of interest, for example, Minecraft^®. Through the study of an online community, something significant can be learnt about the wider focal community, their behaviour, its participants and their valu...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Citation Information
• Notes on Contributors
• Introduction: Introducing e-research in educational contexts, digital methods and issues arising
• 1. Capturing children’s knowledge-making dialogues in Minecraft
• 2. Digital stories as a method for evidence-based practice and knowledge co-creation in technology-enhanced learning for children with autism
• 3. Studying professional knowledge use in practice using multimedia scenarios delivered online
• 4. Disqus website-based commenting as an e-research method: engaging doctoral and early-career academic learners in educational research
• 5. Hermeneutics as a methodological resource for understanding empathy in on-line learning environments
• 6. Advancing ethics frameworks and scenario-based learning to support educational research into mobile learning
• Index