The Power of Video Technology in International Comparative Research in Education (2001) / Chapter Skim
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The Power of Video Technology in International Comparative Research in
The Power of Video Technology in International Comparative Research in
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International video studies generate data that can create audiovisual glossaries of teaching strategies and skills that expand the repertoire of possible teaching approaches. This audiovisual glossary provides a reference point for teaching practices that are difficult to describe in words, particularly when foreign languages and cultural contexts create barriers to interpretation and communication.
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Research studies with a variety of sizes, goals, and methodologies can benefit from the application of video technology in important ways that have the potential to stimulate progress in both methodological and substantive issues. Recommendation 3: The international comparative education research community should undertake initiatives, such as the support of a working group, to help clarify and develop solutions to the privacy and confidentiality issues in using video technology in such research.
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held a workshop to consider the benefits and complexities of using video technology in comparative education research. Participants included scholars with expertise in contemporary ethnography, teacher education, cognitive science, international comparative education, and videography in educational research and teacher professional development (see the Appendix for the workshop agenda and participants)
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Video in international comparative research in education has lately received a great deal of attention, most notably in light of the public release of the TIMSS Videotape Classroom Study. The use of video in educational research has been evolving in many fields, from anthropology to qualitative research traditions in education, ethnomethodology, sociolinguistics, and interactional analyses.2 The next section provides an overview of the historical context of video in international comparative research and therefore highlights selected works from international perspectives.3 BRIEF HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE ON INTERNATIONAL VIDEO RESEARCH Video technology is emerging as an important ethnographic research tool in the fields of educational anthropology and psychology.
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of the U.S. Department of Education, the TIMSS Videotape Classroom Study had the goal of clarifying some of the contextual factors that might help explain differences in achievement.
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In the study, Goldman-Segall used video technology to examine the influence of computers on elementary and middle school students' understanding of their own thinking as they explore science. Her web site allows visitors to view the video images and to discuss the nature of INTERNATIONAL COMPARATIVE RESEARCH IN EDUCATION 7
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This section of the report describes the primary benefits of and caveats associated with using video technology in international comparative studies in education. POWER OF AN IMAGE Early in the workshop discussions, participants focused on a topic that seems almost self-evident: the compelling nature of visual images themselves is the prime advantage of video technology.
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The international group developed a coding scheme to analyze four dimensions of classroom instruction compaINTERNATIONAL COMPARATIVE RESEARCH IN EDUCATION 9
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By looking at how the four dimensions were coded and comparing them to lesson activities in other countries, however, the research group eventually came to a common understanding of "working through." Hiebert explains: "Video data permit researchers from many countries to collaborate around concrete examples of classroom processes and to sort out superficial and linguistic differences from significant classroom practice differences." This example also illustrates another point that several workshop participants emphasized: the importance of truly collaborative interaction between international partners. Video technology creates an opportunity for researchers from diverse perspectives to examine and interpret concrete examples of teaching behaviors in a way that is typically not possible through more traditional forms of data collection in cross-national or comparative research.
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Joseph Tobin referred to this exaggerated sense of confidence about what observers think that they know about a classroom after they have observed only a few videotapes as the "problem of video seduction or verisimilitude." Tobin pointed out that as a society "we are gullible watchers of video," that audiences have a tendency to give themselves over to the authority of the researchers and their video data. Heidi Ross illustrated this point in her description of a colleague's interpretation of the TIMSS Videotape Classroom Study: [The TIMSS videotape]
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Such supplementary information about the context in which a lesson takes place can reduce the gaps in time, space, and culture between the researchers who use the tapes and the events they are trying to understand. In contrast, James Hiebert argued for using videotapes independent of other data, depending on the research questions being asked.
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describe the methods they used in developing coding procedures for the TIMSS Videotape Classroom Study to gain an accurate portrayal of instruction in Germany, Japan, and the United States. For example, their field test brought together a team of six code developers (two from each country)
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To speak with confidence about cross-national comparisons, is it necessary to videotape a national probability sample in each country in a study? Adam Gamoran used the TIMSS Videotape Classroom Study to illustrate this issue.
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Teachers were asked to rate their level of nervousness and how the lesson they taught for the videotaping fit in a larger sequence of lessons. On the basis of teachers' self-reports, the researchers concluded that the TIMSS Videotape Classroom Study captured a fairly representative sample of what typically happens in eighth-grade mathematics classrooms in Germany, Japan, and the United States (Stigler et al., 1999~.
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This small-scale international comparative video study provides insight into the relationship between classroom activity structures and larger educational system features. Whether large-scale or small-scale, however, the expense and precision made possible by international videotapes is not necessary for every classroom study.
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about what was happening in that mace fatl that time." ~~ rid , -- -, ___ _____ Culture might affect the framing of videotaped images in international comparative studies. For example, the relationship between a teacher and the students in a classroom is often reciprocal.
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The presence of a video camera in the classroom may have a very different meaning for the students, teachers, and administrators in one country than in another. Indeed, the sampling of Japanese classrooms for the TIMSS Videotape Classroom Study was complicated in part by the desire of education officials to put the teachers they considered the very best in the spotlight.
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Participants discussed the TIMSS Videotape Classroom Study as an example of how normative negativity might influence teachers' willingness to allow a video record of their teaching to be made public. A major theme in the discussion of the TIMSS results was the perceived inadequacy of U.S.
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Issues of confidentiality are further complicated in the case of international video because of cross-cultural differences in perceptions about privacy and teaching, as well as by the potential power of international video to reach and affect large and disparate audiences. PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT In addition to being a useful methodological tool for research, video technology can also support and improve the practice of teaching.
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Eventually, the teachers develop a shared set of criteria for evaluating teacher effectiveness in accomplishing instructional goals, such as "mathematical thinking is going on" or "participants in the class are showing mutual respect." Such criteria are not used as a basis for judging appropriate teaching beINTERNATIONAL COMPARATIVE RESEARCH IN EDUCATION 21
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teachers may see little relevance in videotapes of lessons in Germany or Japan. Heidi Ross explained the value in using the sometimes radical differences across cultures that are evident in international video research as a catalyst for reflective thinking.
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TIMSS serves as an example, since many researchers were interested in linking observations made in the TIMSS Videotape Classroom Study with TIMSS achievement scores. James Stigler explained in his written contribution to the workshop how the design of the TIMSS Videotape Classroom Study "precluded any causal inferences on the relationship between teaching and learning, either at the level of nation or at the level of teacher/class" for several reasons.
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CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS The Board on International Comparative Studies in Education concludes that international videotapes of students and teaching are a powerful tool for learning about and improving education. Videotapes of classrooms in other countries are particularly powerful in creating opportunities for learning from cross-national and cross-cultural comparisons.
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Thus, serious and focused consideration of confidentiality issues in video research, especially in international settings, is needed to develop creative solutions and to foster discussion and consensus building around such solutions. Recommendation 4: The international comparative education research community should undertake initiatives, such as the support of a working group, to explore the creation of a video archive or archives for international comparative research in education.
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and Japanese students diverge? Educational Researcher 29~3~:4-14.
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Serrano 1999 The TIMSS Videotape Classroom Study: Methods and Findings from an Exploratory Research Project on Eighth-Grade Mathematics Instruction in Germany, Japan, and the United States. National Center for Education Statistics.
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