Keywords

Introduction

Today, children live in a wide world and begin establishing numerous relationships already in their early years, for instance, through participation in preschool activities. Since it is in relation to particular (cultural) contexts that the child acts competently and resiliently, it is important to study children’s everyday actions and interactions with others in their life. In order to study an activity from the child’s perspective or, alternatively phrased, from a participant’s perspective, it is a prerequisite. This means seeing the participants as research subjects rather than research objects, as actors rather than informants, and as social beings rather than isolated individuals (cf. Sommer et al., 2010). As Pramling and Säljö (2015) argue, when doing research and attempting to adopt a child perspective, it is important to realise that children do not act in a vacuum. For instance, they are constantly seeking to adapt to adult initiatives. van Oers (1998) called this process contextualising, defining it as ‘an intellectual activity by itself, embedded in a current sociocultural activity’ (p. 482). Even though there might be issues that are normally seen as features of ‘broader context’, the meaning of action always needs to be understood with regard to the situation in which the child interacts.

This chapter highlights the importance of contextualising children’s participation in research and of seeing children as research subjects. Having a research interest in studying children’s perspectives may be challenging when participating in a large-scale, interdisciplinary EU-funded project with commercial actors. This is what this chapter aims to illustrate.

Recent years have seen a great focus on commencing large-scale, international, interdisciplinary research, emphasised and encouraged not least by the EU commission. A concrete example is Horizon 2020, EU’s most comprehensive research and development programme innovation thus far, with nearly 80 billion EUR available to be applied for during the period 2014–2020. Horizon 2020 had the support of Europe’s leaders and the European Parliament members, who agreed that investments in research and innovation are crucial for Europe’s future. Research grants from the EU under previous framework programmes have brought researchers and industry actors together, from both the EU and other parts of the world, to find solutions to a number of problems (https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/research-and-innovation_en). This constitutes a strong incitement to apply for such funding, not least for commercial companies of educational technologies aiming to implement various technologies in preschools and schools.

The issue of implementing new technologies in educational practices has been studied from various perspectives for many years and ‘has been shown to be a trying mission’ (Lantz-Andersson, 2009, p. 15; cf. Crook, 1996; Latchem, 2014). One reason for this lies in the different views on children as research objects and in different assumptions held about learning. Research designs are often experimental, and the assumptions primarily stem from an individual psychological or behaviourist view of learning (Lagerlöf, 2016). For instance, Voogt and Knezek (2008) state that, although experimental (or quasi-experimental) research designs are appropriate for studying the potential of specific technology applications under controlled situations, it is not easy to transfer findings from such research designs to the reality of the classroom, and thus other research designs are needed to take account of the complexities of the classroom. Where there are failings and shortcomings in implementing educational technology theory or principles, this is largely not due to any inadequacies in the tools but rather to too little attention being paid to the pedagogical, organisational, cultural, and other factors that merge in institutional work and that are decisive for what fails, what works, and what successfully transfers into other contexts. Selwyn with colleagues (2020) also discuss different concerns regarding implementing educational technologies in schools, as business companies tend to influence and shape education decision-making and primarily work to create a demand for their products, rather than responding to ‘ideals of public education’ (p. 3). This has implications for practices-developing research, as the importance of teachers’ requests easily comes to be subordinated to the technologists’ willingness to market their products.

The case presented in this chapter will illustrate and problematise these kinds of encounters; that is, the challenges that may arise when research is conducted in similar ways in different countries with different traditions in early childhood education and care (ECEC) settings, here when using an experimental protocol designed by technical partners with no experience of educational approaches. More specifically, the methodological challenges discussed in this chapter are the following:

  1. 1.

    Demands from the technological partners that the same experimental research be conducted in four different countries, despite different kinds of early childhood education systems.

  2. 2.

    Tension created between the argumentation for designing a technology to be beneficial in early childhood music education while not allowing the teachers to be part of the research process.

  3. 3.

    The fact that the design had to be rigid to be able to ‘prove’ something that supported the commercial framing.

  4. 4.

    The challenges of trying out, along with children in early childhood education (in a so-called natural setting), a prototype that needed a great deal of devices and technical support in order to work.

  5. 5.

    The ethical dilemma that emerged because the experimental situation differed fundamentally from what the children were familiar with from their ordinary Swedish preschool education.

This chapter, written as a narrative from an educational researcher’s point of view, will present the background and procedures of the first part of the project used as an example. The example will highlight the challenges that arose in the interprofessional dialogue between the partners from different disciplines and countries and with different traditions of early childhood education. The tension between the views regarding the importance of contextualising children’s participation in research and the consequences of the technological partners’ commercial interests will be clarified. Finally, there will be a discussion of the lessons learned from participating in the project, and what implications the experience might have on conducting practices-developing research involving digital technologies, in which children participate.

The Project Example of Implementing a Music Technology in Early Childhood Education

The example presented here is from a large-scale and interdisciplinary EU-funded project called Musical Interaction Relying on Reflexion (MIROR, http://www.mirorproject.eu). The project, conducted during the period 2010–2013, consisted of pedagogical/educational and psychological researchers from five universities in Europe, as well as two commercial companies functioning as technological partners. The primary aim of the project was to develop a music technology that would be beneficial in early childhood music education. The project was based on a spiral design approach, which involved the technological partners developing the prototype for the technology and the psychological and pedagogical researchers conducting empirical research on its use in early childhood education and care (ECEC). It was organised around workshops every half year, at which the partners met to discuss their experiences with the intention to establish interprofessional dialogue (Table 8.1). Empirical research and further technology development took place between these workshops.

Table 8.1 Screenshot of descriptions of parts of the planned workshopsa
Full size table

The technology consisted of a computer program that was connected to a keyboard/synthesiser. The reflexive interaction paradigm was based on the idea of letting users manipulate the so-called virtual copies of themselves, through specifically designed machine-learning software. The music technology was hence intended to adapt to the musical style and musical language of the person interacting with and utilising the technology. It was presumed that this would result in the creation of a dialogue between player and machine, with the latter providing feedback by introducing variation and serving as a musical mirror. It had the purpose of indirectly teaching music processes, particularly improvisation (Addessi & Pachet, 2005).

The empirical research was designed in an experimental way, with the children using the technology in ECE settings such as preschools, the first years of primary schools, and after-school centres in Italy, Greece, England, and Sweden. The psycho-pedagogical partners (i.e. the psychological and pedagogical/educational researchers) were to conduct experiments in the light of early childhood music education to study and evaluate the interaction between children and machine and the creative music processes expected to be produced through this. In spring 2011, the psycho-pedagogical partners conducted psychological case study experiments following a detailed protocol, according to which:

  • The teacher/experiment leader must interfere as little as possible to enable the child to interact with the technology alone.

  • The children, aged 4 and 8 years, will play the keyboard connected to Miror Impro for three sessions each.

As these were psychological experiments, they were mostly concerned with the ways in which the prototype would promote specific cognitive abilities or states of mind (e.g. flow) in the child. This was why the experiments required that the teacher/experiment leader interfere as little as possible, enabling the child to interact with the technology alone. Another reason for the detailed protocol on how the experiments were to be performed was, as with any experiment, to ensure that they were conducted in the same way in all participating settings and countries, in order to make it possible to compare the results.

The prototype proved to be complicated to run in the preschool setting. The technology consisted of several devices: a computer, a synthesiser, a speaker, and many cords that had to be connected properly. The software that was under development was not particularly user-friendly, and the experiment leaders needed a great deal of technical support. It was thus a complex mission to achieve entry into the settings, detracting a great deal from the everyday activities when the researchers had to set up all the required equipment and the ECEC teachers had to save a whole room for the experiments. The ordinary preschool and after-school teachers were not present at the sessions, as the children, according to the original idea of the overarching project, were to interact individually with the technology. In addition, since the technology required so much knowledge in how it should be handled, it was not reasonable to ask the ordinary preschool staff to be involved in, or carry out, the experiments. For this reason, the researchers took on the role of teacher in these sessions and encouraged the children to try the system.

In this way, this research case differs substantially from the other examples in the present book (Wallestedt et al., this volume). It was not designed at the request of the preschools, and the ordinary teachers were not at all involved in the process, other than giving the researchers access and providing participants – that is, children – of appropriate ages for the experiment. As the researchers who acted as experiment leaders have an education, and have worked, as teachers, they were familiar with both the traditions of the setting and the role of the teacher at these institutions. I myself have worked as a preschool teacher at the preschool where some of the experiments with the music technology were conducted and therefore knew both the staff and the families, having taught many of the participating children’s older siblings. Because the researchers had already worked with the preschool and after-school centre in other studies, we had established relationships and trust among the teachers, parents, and children.

At an early stage of the project, a number of tensions emerged in the interprofessional dialogue; that is, between the partners, foremost the pedagogical/educational on the one hand and the technological and psychological partners on the other. Even if the project is described as based on a spiral design approach, involving coupled interactions between the technical and psycho-pedagogical partners, it appeared that the rationale for how the initial phase of the project was planned to be performed had been decided beforehand by the technological and psychological partners. The studies proposed by the multidisciplinary project MIROR proved complicated when viewed from the tradition of pedagogical/educational research.

Studying Children Interacting with the Music Technology from a Pedagogical Perspective

It became evident that the children from the Swedish preschool reacted somewhat differently to what has been reported in previous studies conducted in a similar way in Italy (Addessi & Pachet, 2005). Instead of showing excitement when interacting with the system by themselves, the Swedish children continuously oriented towards, and tried to get the attention of, the adult. The children who showed enthusiasm at the sessions did so in regard to the adult rather than the technology, as they (in vain) tried to establish eye contact with the adult. They asked questions and wanted to communicate about what they were exploring while playing the instrument. As the experiment leader was instructed to turn her/his back to the children and pretend to be busy with paperwork, the task was perceived as contrary to the preschool teacher’s ordinary role, and the situation was considered strange, compared to how activities are usually performed in Swedish preschool. Thus, it was contrary to what all children and teachers are used to in the setting of Swedish preschool, and not ethically defendable. It also became obvious that most of the children lost interest in participating in the experiment situations when they did not perceive the affirmation they sought (Wallerstedt & Lagerlöf, 2011; Lagerlöf, 2016).

As pedagogical partners, we argued that the experiences children have of music in early years education are related to their own decisions and their collaboration with their peers (and teachers). For example, we have to be sensitive to children’s own choices and willingness to participate, and it may be difficult to engage someone to do something they have never done before, particularly if they have to do it alone without a friend at their side. We proposed that studies of the technology in an authentic ECEC setting in Sweden would mean activities in which children could explore the technology with their peers and therefore decided that a different kind of study was needed to investigate the use of the technology in Swedish ECEC. As an ‘extracurricular’ activity, those of us on the team from the University of Gothenburg therefore also recorded other children (with their parents’ consent) at the same preschool and after-school centre and conducted sessions with pairs of children together with a teacher, interacting with and in relation to the system. The participants were about 6 years old. In trying this alternative approach to the overarching project’s protocol, we wanted to study children interacting more freely with the technology, friends, and an adult (Lagerlöf, 2015, 2016; Lagerlöf et al., 2013, 2014; Lagerlöf & Peterson, 2018). The basic rationale for this idea was a desire to let the children take part together rather than being tested individually, and with an adult (teacher) as a partner, communicating and interacting with the children and the technology. The adults’ engagement was of a spontaneous and informal character and did not involve planned teaching situations. Conducting and studying these extracurricular activities arguably increased the study’s ecological validity (Crook, 1996; Suthers, 2006) and thus also made the knowledge that was generated useful to teachers as well, rather than only the research community.

In analysing the video documentation, it was clear that the children who participated in these sessions contributed their ideas, and they were primarily the ones who decided the way in which they participated and how much they wanted to speak and otherwise act, in relation to how the activities unfolded.

Research Considering Contextualised Childhoods vs. the Individual Universal Child

Societies both constrain and afford individuals’ actions. On an overarching level, one could say that children live in childhoods in which the social, economic, cultural, and political contexts intersect and have consequences for their lives, including informing how adults as significant others relate to them. This premise suggests that, on the one hand, children in a general sense growing up in the same context may have much in common compared to children growing up in another context, for example, another country with a different way of organising ECEC practices. On the other hand, the participants in the studies presented above (Lagerlöf, 2016) may all be members of Swedish ECEC and have access to the same musical choices but, even then, do not necessarily have the same experiences. Childhoods are thus understood as varied and contextual phenomena. With such an approach, children are studied here-and-now, with attention to how they are engaged in making sense in and of the situation in interaction with their surroundings. This has important implications for studying children. Particularly, when conducting transnational and interdisciplinary research, it is important that variations in educational and sociocultural contexts between the different locations be taken into account.

A reason why the studies conducted in Sweden differed from previous studies with the technology, conducted in a similar way in Italy (Addessi & Pachet, 2005), may involve differences in ECEC approaches and systems as well as how children are socialised through participating in them. If children are used to interacting by themselves with no supporting teacher at their side, they might react differently compared to Swedish children. In Sweden, when performing activities they are not familiar with, children usually interact with peers and teachers. Another reason why the studies varied was the focus of analysis. If one has an individual psychological view of the universal child developing through exploring by her/himself, it might be possible to analyse the ways in which the prototype would promote specific cognitive abilities or states (e.g. flow) in the child. The research team from the University of Gothenburg instead argued for a sociocultural perspective. This affords a nuanced interpretation of young children using digital technology in ECEC settings, as the activities are studied in situ. Instead of focusing on what cognitive abilities the prototype might bring about in the child, we were interested in studying ‘What is the use of technology in educational settings actually like?’ (Selwyn, 2010, p. 70), that is, how the children interact with and around the music technology (Lagerlöf, 2016). The argumentation concerning the importance of contextualising children’s participation in research ‘highlights the need to analyse how participants, metaphorically speaking, weave together what they encounter in an activity with what they know or associate it with’ (Wallerstedt et al., 2022).

Although it was stated that the project was based on a spiral design and there was to be an interprofessional dialogue between the partners, the theoretical assumptions between the technological and pedagogical partners were so different that this made it difficult to come to an agreement. What we found when analysing the activities was that the children did not show enthusiasm when interacting with the prototype. This means that our studies did not align with the commercial framing; of course, the technology’s designers looked for evidence that confirmed success. The designers of the technology in focus in the example, have invested a great deal of effort in developing it and, of course, have a commercial interest in showing how useful it can be in early childhood education.

Implications for Doing Practices-Developing Research on Digital Technologies in ECE

Even if large-scale, international, interdisciplinary research, emphasised and encouraged not least by the EU commission, is beneficial in many ways, it also presents challenges when one is commencing practices-developing research. In this chapter, experiences from participating in a large-scale and interdisciplinary EU-funded project have been illustrated and discussed. The challenges were evident, as the research has been conducted in similar ways in different countries with different ECEC traditions, using an experimental protocol designed by technical partners with no experience of early childhood educational approaches (or with pedagogical/educational as opposed to developmental psychological ways of conducting research). As mentioned, the idea of developing work in educational institutions through novel technologies is not a new idea. As Latchem (2014) writes, ‘The concept of educational technology as a means of addressing the technical, managerial and institutional complexities of educational change as a whole began to coalesce in the 1960s and 1970s’ (p. 4). However, in the half century since, what lessons have been learnt? Selwyn et al. (2020) discuss hopes and concerns for educational technologies in the future, and although they argue that commercial contribution is not inherently wrong, they claim that there is a need to ask critical questions in relation to it:

For example, should major ‘big tech’ corporations continue to exercise ‘soft power’ in influencing and shaping education decision-making, while all the time profiting from the decisions being made? How might we better ensure that commercial actors respond primarily to the ideals of public education rather than working to create demand for their products? How can educators be supported in maintaining their role in guiding and leading the development of our youngest members of society? What counter-narratives can be developed against the prevalent forms of high-tech behaviourism that companies are promoting through the development of data-driven personalised learning systems? Critical EdTech research has a key role to play in supporting educational communities to confront the challenge of preserving the past while adapting to the future. (p. 3).

In commencing practices-developing research, one of the necessary aspects is hence that the teachers maintain their role in the ECEC setting and do not let the commercial actors’ interests shape the educational decision-making. These tools, like other novel tools (digital or otherwise) need to be recontextualised in ECEC; how to do this constitutes one important challenge for researchers – in collaboration with ECEC personnel – to take on when doing this kind of research. In an action research project, Willermark and Pareto (2020) studied participation work within a school development project in a Nordic elementary school using virtual classrooms. They explore ‘how and why boundaries can play a role in computer-supported collaborative teaching and stimulate a transformation towards digitalized teaching practices’ (p. 743). In the study, they found that the composition of boundaries of a technological, organisational, and cultural nature operated within and constituted a resource for the teachers’ learning. As Willermark and Pareto (2020) further argue, boundaries imply conflict and frustration, but in a reflective practice and through negotiations this may lead to a transformation of work practices. In the example presented in this chapter, the boundaries we faced were not regarded or used as a resource in the interprofessional dialogue. The ordinary teachers were not at all involved in the studies, as the technology itself was intended to serve as an advanced cognitive tutor (Ferrari & Addessi, 2014). Although we as researchers conducted extracurricular activities during which we studied the children interacting more freely with the technology, friends, and an adult (Lagerlöf, 2016; Lagerlöf, 2015; Lagerlöf et al., 2013, 2014; Lagerlöf & Peterson, 2018), the teachers’ perspectives were not considered in the project. In participatory research, these are important aspects to problematise; for example, who is participating, in what ways, and why were the teachers’ perspectives not given relevance?

This chapter has emphasised the importance of studying participants (in this case the participating children) as research subjects and as actors, rather than objects and informants. When conducting research in authentic ECEC settings, no matter if it is the child’s or the teacher’s perspective or how these different perspectives come into play in responsive actions that is analytically attended to, it is important that sociocultural contexts be taken into account. As Wallerstedt with colleagues (2022) argue, context not only involves describing the setting as such but is also an analytical concept. When discussing participation in what has been referred in this chapter to as practices-developing research, teachers’ (and perhaps researchers’) participation is almost exclusively focused on. In contrast, in this chapter, I have focused on the matter of children’s participation in such research, discussing the importance of contextualisation. Involving working not only with partners from research and ECEC settings but also with professionals representing different disciplinary traditions (such as technical partners), the research discussed here implies that there is no one-size-fits-all model that can simply be implemented in a straightforward manner to enable easy comparison across settings in various cultural contexts; rather, the implementation and the tools used need to be recontextualised in order to be able to say something productively about tool use in the investigated setting. Rather than a simple comparison, research in which the tool-in-use is studied recontextualised in the diverse contexts being investigated could provide contrasting cases, illuminating differences critical to how ECEC settings are organised, as well as commonalities that emerge despite these differences.