"These are camera themes." On the power and challenges of video-based research in music education

Abstract

Summary

“Situations are something highly complex. Neither humans nor cameras are capable of overlooking or completely catching them. They are multi-layered and untransparent. Cameras are capable of cutting a swathe through the thicket of a situation – no more, no less.†(Mohn, 2007, 181; transl. Gebauer)

Nevertheless, situations, in which humans and music play a role, may be even more multifaceted due to music-inherent characteristics and music-specific forms of interaction. Setting a methodological focus, this essay unfolds the power of a video-based investigation of music teaching and learning and touches challenging issues of the videographic process.

Starting with an outline of some general characteristics of the audio-visual medium, in the first part of this essay (chapter 2) it will be argued that video data cannot be an authentic representation of the observed reality (Schnettler & Knoblauch, 2009, 276). Instead, in contrast to human perception, the video camera allows a different perspective: limited and extended views at once (cf. Mohn, 2007). The chapter emphasises the multitude of audio-visual components and their simultaneous sequentiality (cf. Moritz, 2010; Dinkelaker, 2009). References to methodological examinations of the video data type touch issues of the medium’s perspective and objectivity and the researcher’s role in approaching and analysing video data. These references set the starting point for dealing with the relationship and contrasting features between qualitative and quantitative approaches to video data in the course of this essay. While the multicodality of video data offers a profound insight into human (inter)action, questions of perspective and interpretation pose serious methodological challenges to the researcher.

Chapter 3 gives an overview on video studies of differing research paradigms and video-analytic approaches within a range of disciplines in educational and classroom research. On the basis of a methodologically constructed continuum (cf. Janik, Seidel & Navjar, 2009, 8)  video surveys, such as the quantitative oriented TIMS-video studies (1995 / 1999), are compared to small-scale video studies, and contrasted to qualitative and ethnographic video-based research. Whereas quantitative large-scale video studies aim at a representative and generalisable picture of classroom practice, they disregard a detailed analysis of individual characteristics in teaching and learning processes, and oftentimes fall short of a multicodal interpretation. In contrast, albeit limited to a small sample, qualitative video researchers’ analytic depth is particularly devoted to interactional details, deliberately taking into account the audio-visual codes such as facial expression, gesture, bodily motion, and paralinguistic information. The chapter exemplifies in what ways researchers use the audio-visual multicodality to approach their specific research interests. The selection of studies introduced comprises quantitative investigations of classroom teaching patterns and their effects on the learning progress and the learner’s perspective in different school subjects (e. g. Jacobs, Garnier, Galimore et al. 2003; Clarke, Keitel & Shimizu, 2006; Schmidt & Faust, 2011; Helmke, Helmke, Schrader et al. 2008; Göbel, 2007) as well as ethnographic studies on interaction in early childhood (e. g. König, 2009; Mohn & Hebenstreit-Müller, 2007). It refers to qualitative studies on students’ emotion in the classroom (e. g. Mayring, Gläser-Zikuda & Ziegelbauer, 2005), students’ competencies and communicative strategies (e. g. Mogge, 2008) or teaching patterns in the classroom (cf. Fischer, 2006). Studies on teaching patterns in physical education (e. g. Friedrich, 1991; Kleiner, 2009) and arts (e. g. Kläger, 1993; Kirchner, 2007) are of particular interest from an aesthetic point of view as the visual and motional components may carry a pivotal meaning.

The main part of this essay (chapter 4) takes on a music educational perspective and raises the question of the video data’s specific potential of investigating music teaching and learning situations. An exemplary and systematised outline of video studies in German music education research and beyond documents “camera themes†(Mohn, 2010, 208; transl. Gebauer) that the discipline is devoted to.

-           Music educational “camera themes†range from extra- and pre-linguistic communication in early childhood (Mohn & Hebenstreit-Müller, 2007) to musical interaction and music teaching in Kindergarten (ebd., 2009)

-           They comprise investigations of music-related motion and teaching dance choreographies (Mohn, 2007).

-           Video-based research on conducting and its relationship to ensemble quality (cf. Litmann, 2006; Davis, 1998; Price, 2006; Johnson, Darrow & Eason, 2008) is a special field of interest.

-           Furthermore, on the one hand, video-studies are devoted to instrumental practising strategies (cf. Nielsen, 1999; Seddon & Biasutti, 2009 & 2010) and instrumental learning strategies (cf. Davis, 2010; Young, 2003). On the other hand, they examine instruction in instrumental and singing lessons: feedback culture (Cavitt, 2003), teaching patterns (cf. Karlsson & Patrik, 2008; Benson & Fung, 2005), the effect of methods and working forms (Tervoort, 2010; Daniel, 2006 & 2008) as well as communicational patterns (cf. Rostvall & West, 2005; Moritz, 2010b).

-            Another thematic field is dedicated to creative group processes in formal and informal contexts, e. g. learning and teaching processes among groups of children in the playground and schoolyard (Marsh, 2008; Ogawa & Murao, 2007) and learning and composing strategies in rock- and pop bands (cf. Campell, 1995, Johansson, 2004, Seddon, 2005, Rosenbrock, 2006). Interested in formal group learning contexts, several studies investigate improvisational and / or compositional strategies among children and students (cf. Kranefeld, 2008a, b; Beegle, 2010; Burnard, 2000, 2002; Büring, 2010).

-           Music educational „camera themes“ also comprise investigations of music-related communication (cf. Rostvall & West, 2005; Daubner & Schirmer, 2011).

-            Moreover, music-related affective and aesthetic experiences are beginning to be investigated (Hoerburger, 1992; Zurmuehle, 2011).

-            Finally, both teaching patterns in the regular music classroom (Gebauer, in print; Berkley, 2001; Bolden, 2001, Faultley, 2004, Bowers, 1997, Price, 1992; Sims, 1991) and in special music teaching programmes (Consortium of the JeKi-Research Programme, 2010; Kranefeld & Schoenbrunn, 2010) are scarcely researched fields.

All these music educational “camera themes†have in common that they cannot be approached by audio-recordings or by the transcription of the spoken only. They are rather based on the entelechy of music and music-related forms of (inter)action: the unidirectional temporality, the elusiveness, and the semantic indeterminacy of music as well as the emotionality, the bodily expressions, and the verbally reduced interaction when experiencing and expressing music through listening, playing and talking about music. Outlining some of these studies’ research questions and results in more detail, this fourth chapter points to the video-data’s music-specific multicodality, and demonstrates the new insights that can be gained through their in-depth analysis.

Besides the audio-visual power, the examination of music educational “camera themes†reveals methodological challenges and shortfalls of the videographic method. These issues are picked up in the final chapter with respect to aspects of data transcription, video data analysis and the presentation of video-analytic results (chapter 5). Music educational video researchers often lack a transparent and systematic video-analytic approach presumably due to the fact that there are scarcely any established methods of analysing music-related interaction. Some current methodological efforts and reflections by individual researchers in the fields of instrumental teaching and learning research (Moritz, 2010a,b; 2011; Daniel, 2008; Rostvall & West, 2005), research on creative group processes (Kranefeld, 2008c; Rosenbrock, 2008), and the aesthetic and emotional dimensions of music experience (Zurmuehle, 2011) will be introduced and discussed.

Learning and teaching music is experience, expression, motion and communication – verbal, non-verbal, metaphoric, physical and musical. Creating and experiencing music is hardly perceptible; musical thoughts can hardly be put into words; the music itself cannot be frozen. However, what this essays intents to underline is the meaningful clues that video data can give us to the burning questions of music-related experience, (inter)action and communication in the moment of their occurrence: in the rock band, in the schoolyard, in the dancing group, in the choir, or in the music classroom…