Good luck with your research Julia.  You might like to read Iona Opie's book 'The People in the
Playground' before you begin - it's a record of her observations in a local school playground over
two years, using only written notes.  Her acute observations of the players, as well as the games,
gives an insight into the personalities of the children and the possible reasons for some of their
behaviours.

She writes in the introduction:  "In our books my husband and I tried to demonstrate the quantity,
diversity, and astonishing longevity of children's lore.  Now I have attempted to give a picture of
the playground itself, to show the lore being transmitted from child to child, the nonce-games being
invented, and the behaviour of performers and their audiences."

Children who are performers are going to do so as long as there is an audience - even when there is
no video-camera around.  In seeking to understand their behaviour, it really helps if you know the
children well, so I think it's a great idea to have an Advisory Group of their peers.

I'm really looking forward to finding out how it all goes.

Best wishes,

Judy McKinty


"Julia C.Bishop" wrote:

> Dear All,
>
> Thanks to Fraser and everyone who responded to his comments
> about the possible effect of using video cameras on the validity of
> our study of disabled and non-disabled children in the playground.
>  Although I did not mention this aspect in my original email about
> some of the concerns of our Advisory Committee, I do assure
> Fraser that I did not mean to underplay the importance of the issue
>   he raises, nor give the impression that we were not considering it.
>
> There are no glib answers to this issue which is a general one in
> field research but has particular pertinence in our case.  There are
> a couple of points that I'd like to make, though.  One is that the
> specific focus of the study as such will not form part of the
> explanation given to the children of the project.  The explanation
> will be along the lines that we are interested in what the children
> say and do in the playground at playtime and lunchtime, such as
> the games they play and the way they play them.
>
> I think there's also an argument for letting the children show us
> what they can do (in a positive sense).  It seems a fair assumption
>  that most children will want to impress in the initial stages of the
> research so what they choose to show us and foreground without
> prompting by us may well be of significance.
>
> I imagine that, because we will not make evaluative comments on
> their play or attempt to control it in the way that a playground
> supervisor might, there will be children who want to 'try it on' and
> push the boundaries to see if they can, for example, tell us
> scatalogical rhymes, or, yes, perhaps, behave in a way considered
>   unacceptable by the school adults.  Again, this will have its
> significance if so.
>
> There is an argument here for contextualising the data within the
> progress of the fieldwork - what arises early on in the playground
> observation when our presence as researchers is a novelty, and
> what arises later.  And there is a strong case for reflexivity here
> and recording impressions of how we are being perceived by the
> children in the course of the fieldwork.
>
> Another point is about the method of videotaping that we are
> planning to use and the actual technology itself.  We are keenly
> aware that to videotape most or all of the time is often to limit
> observation. We are therefore planning playtimes employing
> observation without the use of video.  Indeed, it is clear that one
> cannot videotape everything anyway, even on one playground, and
> many schools have more than one.  It is quite possible that
> negative behaviour may be happening in another part of the
> playground simultaneously with the videotaping of a specific activity
>   elsewhere.
>
> I wonder if the actual design of video cameras these days may be
> helpful as regards fieldwork too.  I'm thinking of the fact that most
> camcorders have a small window which opens out from the side of
>  the machine allowing the recordist to observe what is being filmed
>  without actually placing the camera up to their eye.  Thus the
> researcher can film from the camera held at ,say, waist height, and
>   avoid obscuring their face.  It seems to me that this lessens the
> sense of the camera 'pointing at people', although it clearly still is!
>  It also means that the researcher's eyes can observe other things,
>   if they so wish, whilst recording a specific activity.
>
> A final point I'd like to mention is that following the pilot study, a
> set of children from the pilot school will be asked to form a young
> persons' Advisory Group for the project, in addition to our adult one.
>   It seems to me that it would ideal to gain their thoughts on
> whether  the use of video-recording had a significant impact on the
> way they  and the other children behaved in the playground and
> specifically if  it produced more positive results than would normally
>  have been  the case.
>
> When all's said and done, it's hard to see how one could gauge in
> a scientific way the impact of the camera on the play.  And as
> Fraser highlights, using hidden cameras leads to a whole lot more
> ethical problems (though this has been done, see, for example,
> Debra J. Pepler and Wendy M. Craig, 'A Peek Behind the Fence:
> Naturalistic Observations of Aggressive Children with Remote
> Audiovisual Recording', _Developmental Psychology_, 31 (1995),
> 548- 53).
>
> We'll let you know how we get on!
>
> All best wishes,
>
> Julia
>
> Julia C. Bishop (Dr)
> National Centre for English Cultural Tradition
> University of Sheffield
> Sheffield  S10 2TN
> U.K.
>
> Tel: (Direct Line) 0114 222 6295
> (NATCECT Office) 0114 222 6296
> EMAIL: [log in to unmask]
>
> Julia C. Bishop (Dr)
> National Centre for English Cultural Tradition
> University of Sheffield
> Sheffield  S10 2TN
> U.K.
>
> Tel: (Direct Line) 0114 222 6295
> (NATCECT Office) 0114 222 6296
> EMAIL: [log in to unmask]
>
> Julia C. Bishop (Dr)
> National Centre for English Cultural Tradition
> University of Sheffield
> Sheffield  S10 2TN
> U.K.
>
> Tel: (Direct Line) 0114 222 6295
> (NATCECT Office) 0114 222 6296
> EMAIL: [log in to unmask]