Qualitative research on interactive media use in education

In response to the blogposts of Jane Davies and Jeffrey Keefer on grounded theory and situational analysis, I decided to share the qualitative methods applied for my article 'Pathways in interactive media practices among youths' published in Learning, Media and Technology. This article was part of the special edition titled 'Learning, the Net Generation and Digital Natives' and edited by Chris Jones.

The qualitative study would count more as situational analysis instead of grounded theory I suppose. However, the iterative waves of comparative analysis were an essential part of my method.

For this article, semi-structured 1-to-1 sessions were set up. The respondents were selected by means of purposive sampling. This method implies an active search for cases within categories, with the purpose of a better understanding of behaviour. This means that all students in the selected schoolclasses filled out a questionnaire about their use of interactive media (IE. Internet and games). The respondents were then identified based on the user categories that resulted from a previous survey study (published in Journal of Computer Assisted Learning). Students were randomly selected from each user category to represent the population division of the survey results.

During the interview sessions questions were posed regarding the respondent's history of interactive media use and the purpose, opinions and social networks related to these media. The interview questions served as probes for the respondents to tell stories about their interactive media use.

The second part of the interview consisted of questions steered by autodriving visual elicitation as proposed by Prosser and Loxley (2008). This method is intended to let respondents show what is important to them (in this case specific interactive media), while simultaneously explaining how they used these media. The principle of autodriving helped to ensure that interviews include topics relevant to the respondents.

All interviews were video recorded by means of a webcam. This helped the 'line by line analysis' to a large extent. The researcher was aware of the allocation of respondents in user categories during the interview, which guided the themes to be discussed. For instance: Gamers were asked more, but not solely, about games. However, in order to let all possible themes arise, all types of interactive media were touched upon.

The data analysis consisted of two phases:
1) a within-case analysis to reach data reduction and
2) a cross-case analysis to search for patterns in the respondents' stories.
In the first phase, data of each respondent were analysed. After transcription and open-ended coding of the interviews, a thematic coding around categories corresponding to the research questions was performed.

The technique of 'constant comparative analysis' as proposed by Glaser and Strauss (1967) was used for both the vertical and the horizontal analysis in order to continuously compare preliminary interpretations with accounts of the other respondents and the theoretical framework. In this process of reading, interpreting and checking, the patterns of interactive media use, including origins of specific types of use arose from the data.

Diversity in interactive media use among youths.

Leraar 24, a Dutch website discussing educational innovations by means of video-reports, published a video about my research on interactive media use among youths.

Considering young people's motives for interactive media use

Educational Research Review published my article on young people's motives for interactive media use. It contains a literature review of empirical evidence against the Net generation assumptions. The review was finished March 2009, just before we submitted the article. However, since that moment a number of studies were published that describe diversity in young people's interactive media use to more detail. These were not included in the review.

The abstract:

Young people's increasing use of interactive media has led to assertions about possible consequences for education. Rather than following assertions, we argue for theory-driven empirical research as a basis for education renewal. First, we review the existing empirical research, concluding that there is almost no theory-driven research available. Subsequently we discuss sensitizing concepts as a perspective for research on the relation between interactive media and youth culture. These concepts, derived from the literature, include insecurity, reflexivity, affinity spaces and shape-shifting portfolio people. With this perspective we examine social and cultural functions of interactive media within contemporary Western youth culture. This examination leads to questions for education and a subsequent plan for future research, with a focus on diversity among students and the development of local cultures. This entails studying both the motives as well as the actual use of interactive media, which should be the concern of educational practices.

Full text (subscription required)

The use of interactive media among today’s youth

The pilot study about young people's interactive media use I did has been published by Computers in Human Behavior. Here's the abstract:

The intensive use of interactive media has led to assertions about the effect of these media on youth. This paper presents a quantitative study on the position of interactive media in young people’s lives. Rather than following the assumption of a homogeneous generation, we investigate the existence of a diversity of user patterns. The research question for this paper: Can patterns be found in the use of interactive media among youth? We answer this question by a survey among Dutch youngsters aged 10–23. Four clusters of interactive media users, namely Traditionalists, Gamers, Networkers and Producers were identified using cluster analysis. Behind these straightforward clusters, a complex whole of user activities can be found. Each cluster shows specific use of and opinions about interactive media. This provides a contextualized understanding of the position of interactive media in the lives of contemporary youth, and a nuanced conceptualization of the ‘Net generation’. This allows for studying the intricate relationship between youth culture, interactive media and learning.

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Intrinsicly motivated? Nah, sheer peer pressure...

While transcribing interviews with 15 year olds about their interactive media use, it struck me that they all reported to use social software, such as Hyves or Facebook, 'because all the others do so as well'. My first thought was "you're 15, you should be a non-conformist". My second thought was, referring to Brian: "You're all individuals"...

However, today a blogitem about the SXSW festival described the same issue. A girl (15 years old) reportedly told the audience during a presentation " All my friends do Photoshops, use Photoshop. So I use and learned Photoshop to impress them".

This indicates that, as far as the Net generation debate is concerned, peer-pressure is an important factor explaining the use of interactive media. A more constructive term is of course 'peer-driven participation', as defined by Ito (2008) in her report on the Digital Youth Project.