Dancing cameras: Researchers moving with chest-mounted action cameras in movement-based teaching practices with children

Description

The use of action cameras (e.g., mounted on chests) to produce video data in research has increased, and previous research has pointed towards several benefits of using them, such as the chest-mounted action camera not restricting the wearer’s movements (Hov & Neegard, 2020). In educational research, many studies have focused on children or teachers wearing action cameras, but attention to researchers wearing action cameras when engaging in movement-based teaching practices and producing video data is discussed less extensively. This paper stems from methodological questions that were raised in a research project where a researcher wore a chest-mounted action camera to produce video data. The project explored and developed dance-integrated teaching of early literacies education in pre-primary education, and was conducted by a multiprofessional team, encompassing a researcher, a pre-primary teacher, and a dance teacher, all of whom engaged in movement-based activities with the children. Wearing the action camera when dancing, the camera did, however, affect the researcher’s movements with the children because of the researcher’s multiple roles in teaching collaboratively in the multiprofessional team and producing video data. The camera became an active agent in the researcher’s dance movements; the researcher and the camera became a hybrid (Lofthus & Frers, 2021). Against this backdrop, this paper explores how the researcher-camera-hybrid affect the video-recording processes and movement-based teaching practices. This paper presentation provides examples from the video-recordings and the researcher’s embodied data from participating in the teaching and producing video data to discuss methodological opportunities and challenges in such teaching and research practices.

Period	8 Jan 2025
Event title	8th European Congress of Qualitative Inquiry: Hope, Humility and Playfulness in a Precarious World 2025: ECQI 2025
Event type	Conference
Location	Edinburgh, United KingdomShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International