Visual narrative methodology in educational research with babies: triadic play in babies’ room

This paper examines an experimental technique that uses visual narrative methodology and dialogue commentary to create an effective research methodology for a pilot project studying babies and toddlers in long day care centres and family contexts. Researchers from different cultural backgrounds using video technology, formed the team of chief investigators. One video clip was chosen to make independent descriptions, comments and interpretations of what was noticed. Later, initial visual narrative descriptions were shared and extended after reading one another's responses. This process created a dialogue commentary that enabled data overview, interpretative analyses and synthesis supported by snapshot moments taken from video clip. One aim of the project was to visually capture the cultural worlds and transitory relationships of babies and toddlers. Researchers showed the selected video clip separately to babies' room educator, centre director, and parents recording their responses. Using visual narrative methodology, dialogue commentary, and a shared cultural historical theoretical framework, revealed useful contradictions that raised social and cultural questions such as: How do educators recognize cultural worlds and transitory relationships of babies and toddlers? How are transitory moments related to pedagogically by educators? Integrating researchers' personal, cultural and affective responses, affords new critical cultural perspectives. This paper draws on screen capture snapshot moments from one video clip, taken from babies' pilot project data. These offer small windows into methodological approaches used to research the cultural world and transitory moments of three infants and their educator, located in the babies' room of an Australian long day care (LDC) site.