Reflections on video-based, cross-cultural classroom research methodologies

For those researching the nuances of the complex interactions and representations that mediate teaching and learning, video offers rich affordances with its capacity to capture the multimodality of these processes and enables researchers to investigate phenomena in more powerful ways. Video-based classroom research poses a number of challenges including conducting analyses and making interpretations that take into account the full range of contextual factors and perspectives, particularly when researching across cultural contexts. The capacity of researchers to see and understand salient features of teaching and learning in foreign cultures is inevitably limited by their own culturally-embedded experiences of teaching and learning. This chapter outlines methodological approaches adopted by the team of Australian, German and Taiwanese researchers to address challenges of: collecting comparable data in each country; sampling and representativeness; data sharing and analysis; re-representation and interpretation drawing on multi-theoretical, insiders’ and outsiders’ perspectives to minimise cultural bias. Data for this chapter are drawn from the video case studies of primary science teaching captured in Australian, German and Taiwanese classrooms as part of the EQUALPRIME study