The Use of Digital Artifacts to Analyse Science Concept Formation in Very Young Children

Abstract

Research examining conceptual development in pre-school age children has relied predominantly on children’s verbal responses and interactions. During infancy, however, immature verbal language skills limit the use of such commonly used methods. Studying infants and toddlers during the pandemic has added new challenges to this unique and highly demanding research area. In this chapter, we showcase how digital visual methods, developed and introduced in response to this methodological ‘crisis’, offer researchers a means through which many of the challenges inherent in studying very young children, can be overcome. To highlight the affordances of using digital artefacts to analyse very young children’s concept formation, the chapter focuses on science concept formation, during infancy and toddlerhood. Indicative examples from the implementation of a Conceptual PlayWorld as an educational experiment (see Chap. 2) offer illustrative examples of digital data analysis with children aged 8 to 36 months. It is shown that using digital artefacts, subtleties of development reflected in physical movement and interactions (e.g., gestures, embodied peer interactions), can be captured and later analysed. Key points researchers using digital artefacts, are able to look for, capture, and dialectically interrelate when analysing concept formation in very young children specifically are highlighted. We argue that digital artifacts allow the digital recreation of the body shading light to new dimensions of the child’s experience in science and opening a space for reflection for researchers. Consequently, adopting a dialectical lens in analyzing digital data, possible insight into the process of concept formation as it occurs for very young, non-verbal children, is afforded.

1 Introduction

Early science learning experiences are essential for the development of children’s scientific knowledge and inquiry skills. Empirical research on science concept formation in the early years has, however, focused primarily on children aged three to six. Our understanding of science learning as it occurs for children from birth to three, therefore, is extremely limited. With older pre-school age children (3–6 years), it is well understood what the researcher is ‘looking for’ when seeking to explore conceptual development within an everyday educational context and how to capture it. Our previous research (O’Connor et al., 2021) has brought together diverse research techniques for documenting the process of early science concept formation such as pre and post-tests, semi-structured interviews, children’s dialogues, and/or children’s drawings. In these examples, children’s learning was mainly expressed through children’s scientific narratives and artefacts. With very young non-verbal children, however, much less is known about what the indicators of learning in science are and how to capture science concept formation. Restrictions in research in times of crisis made this fundamental challenge of researching with very young children far more complex as researchers had no access to supplementary sources such as historical documentation of infants learning as they turn toddlers and then pre-schoolers or to extended recordings from educational reality in early childhood settings, and follow up meeting with early childhood teachers. In this framework, researchers faced a need to seek for deeper interrelations and think differently about the digital data available to them.

In this chapter, we showcase how adopting a digital visual methodology, many of the challenges inherent in studying very young children, and research limitations imposed by the pandemic can be overcome. Using digital artefacts, subtleties of conceptual development such as those expressed physically through gestures and embodied peer interactions can be captured and later analysed. We argue that digital artifacts can create the conditions for the digital recreation of the body and experience allowing access to multiple and diverse aspects of the child’s learning and development and deepening the researcher’s understanding of the digital data sets. Thus, insight into concept formation as it occurs for very young children within the context of their everyday educational reality, is afforded.

The chapter uses case examples from a cultural-historical study, to highlight the possibilities digital artefacts offer for analysing science concept formation in very young children. A brief overview of the study from which the case examples are taken, is firstly provided. Subtleties of development the researcher analysing very young children’s concept formation using digital artefacts, is able to ‘look for’, are then presented (see Table 8.1). Using an illustrative example, components of a digital visual methodology of specific significance when working with very young children, is then discussed. Concluding sections discuss how, from a cultural-historical perspective, a digital visual methodology affords insight into very young children’s concept formation within the context of the everyday educational reality.

Table 8.1 Subtleties of development through digitally analysing concept formation in very young children

2 The Digital Recreation of the Body and the Experience of the Child

The data presented in this chapter were generated as part of a study conducted at an early years education center in Melbourne, Australia. The study sought to explore the process of science concept formation during infancy and toddlerhood. Thirty-two children, aged 8–14 months, and eight educators participated in the study. The study used a cultural-historical framework to design and implement a Conceptual PlayWorld as an educational experiment (see Chap. 2). The Conceptual PlayWorld is a model of intentional teaching that supports STEM learning through play, (Fleer, 2018). As an educational experiment, researchers worked with early childhood teachers to plan and implement two Conceptual PlayWorld’s which focused on developing children’s understanding of biological science concepts.

Adopting a digital visual methodology, each Conceptual PlayWorld was digitally recorded using 3 video cameras (1 static, 2 hand-helds). Digital data was then analysed using a 3 layered interpretative process (Hedegaard, 2008). To help understand the process through which the children were developing understandings of the science concepts, the digital data was analysed using cultural-historical theoretical concepts as the interrelation between everyday and scientific concept formation, ideal and real form, and motives and demands.

Using digital artefacts within the context of a digital study design, researchers were able to capture and later analyse, subtleties of development reflected in the children’s physical movements and interactions such as the child’s physical positioning in relation to peers, the direction and duration of an infant’s eye gaze. Through analysing these subtleties of development available in the digital data, researchers were able to gain insight into the process of science concept formation as it was occurring for the children within the context of the Conceptual PlayWorld. An overview of the subtleties of development researchers using digital artifacts were able to look for, when seeking to analyse the conceptual development of the children in the study, is presented in the following table (Table 8.1).

Table 8.1 provides an overview of the subtleties of development researchers, using digital artifacts, are able to look for, when seeking to analyse concept formation in very young children. Three main categories were created to cluster our observations in digital data sets: (a) embodiment, (b) preverbal communications, and (c) physical positioning. As shown elsewhere (Fragkiadaki et al., 2022, 2023), these elements can be understood as an indication that the child is forming a concept. For example, an embodied action can be representative of a child’s exploration of a concept. At the same time, analysing these elements as a whole can give an insight into how the child is forming a conceptual understanding. For example, through preverbal interaction with peers such as making the sound of an animal together, children may experience a deepening in their conceptual understanding. Respectively, the direction and duration of an infant’s eye gaze can tell us what and /or to who the infant is paying attention to. How a child enters into and exits from an activity setting, can also be determined through observing their physical positioning in relation to peers and/or educators. To illustrate how the analysis of the subtleties of development (presented in Table 8.1), can contribute to an understanding of the process of conceptual development in very young children, an example of analysis, based on children’s ‘physical positioning’ is now presented (Vignette 1). How this, in turn, contributed to an understanding of the process of conceptual development, is then discussed.

Vignette 1

A group of children sits on a mat whilst an educator reads the book, ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ by Eric Carle. After finishing the book, the children are encouraged to leave the mat area and line up in front of a second educator, where they are given a headband to signal their entering into the imaginary play space as a caterpillar (Fig. 8.1). Two children from the group do not line up with their peers to receive a caterpillar headband (Fig. 8.2). They instead remain on the mat area watching their peers and the two educators. Figure 8.1, was captured by Camera A and Fig. 8.2 was captured at the exact same time from a different angle by Camera B.

Fig. 8.1

Children line up to receive a ‘caterpillar’ headband from Educator 2

Fig. 8.2

Two children remain on the mat area watching their peers line up

Cultural-historical theory conceptualises development as something that must be understood and examined as a holistic and dynamic process (Fleer & Ridgeway, 2014). In the case example presented (Vignette 1), using multiple digital artefacts provided researchers with a means through which the research context, in addition to the child’s activity, could be considered. To capture holistically the activity occurring within the Conceptual PlayWorld, 3 digital video cameras were used (1 fixed camera and 2 handhelds). Using three cameras in this manner, the dynamics of the educators’ and children’s participation within the Conceptual PlayWorld in relation to the science concept could be captured. For example, the physical positioning of two children (Fig. 8.2) differs from that of their peers (Fig. 8.1) within the context of the activity setting. This difference, when later interpreted in relation to other contextual aspects of the activity setting, provided the foundation for deeper analysis and subsequent theorisation. Consequently, having data from multiple cameras, factors contributing to the children’s differing social situations of development were captured which supported the later interpretation and analysis of data.

Vignette 1 demonstrates how the digital recreation of the child’s experience in science can contribute to and deepen the analysis. Combining and interrelating evidence captured at the same time but from different angles and perspectives, the researcher can observe and understand the child’s experience as a multi-dimensional and multi-level experience. For example, the researcher can map dialectical interrelations between the child’s positioning in the space of the classroom, the child’s engagement with the science experience, and the development of the child’s conceptual understanding. At the same time, the child’s personal pathway within the activity setting can be dialectically interrelated to her peer’s pathway and/ or the pedagogical choices and positioning of the early childhood teacher. The following figure (Fig. 8.3) captures the process of the transition from the empirical evidence of the child’s nonverbal communications to the digital recreation of the body and the experience that allows a relational understanding of the child’s conceptual development in science. In the figure, the first icon captures the messy nature of the data collection process, whilst the second icon symbolises how during the analysis the researcher becomes more systematic and ordered in how they come to understand the data. But as this is an iterative process, we bring forward in the figure the dialectical nature of analysis. For instance, in the figure, the child’s gestures and positioning in space could be represented as evidence of the child’s nonverbal communication within the activity setting. When these pieces of evidence are dialectically interrelated to the early childhood teacher’s scientific narrative and the child’s engagement with the concept throughout the activity setting they allow us to understand the critical role of gestures and positioning as part of the child’s learning in science. Using a dialectic lens the researcher becomes able to interrelate and, importantly, synthesize diverse and multiple evidence from the data set that is complementing as well as to follow these interrelations as they change and transform over time. Following dialectical thinking the evidence is creatively combined as a whole providing access to a revised and enriched research reality that the researcher is able to revisit and reflect on from different perspectives (see also Chap. 7).

Fig. 8.3

The process of a digital recreation of the child’s body and experience

Rather than being a barrier to understanding the child’s conceptual understandings, digitalization overcomes the here-and-now limitations and transforms the norm of commonly used methods for mapping conceptual development. Digital observations allow the richness of the infants’ and toddlers’ dynamic communication means to be captured and the complexity of the science experience to be better unpacked. What is important to note here is that the digital recreation of the body and the experience is different from the digital representation of the experience or the mainstream understanding of the digital body as an avatar of the personality (Davis et al., 2009). The digital recreation of the body brings us closer to the child’s personality rather than taking us away from it in the way the digital body may do.

3 Conclusions

The aim of the cultural-historical study from which the case example presented was taken, was to examine possible ways through which very young children develop science concepts within the context of an imaginary play situation. In older pre-school-aged children (3–6 years), conceptual development has been examined predominantly, using methods reliant on a child’s verbal responses (see for example Fragkiadaki et al. (2019) and Frejd (2021)). Using this method in the study presented was not an available option as at the age of 8–36 months, the children’s verbal language skills were very limited. In addition, the limitations in research posed by the pandemic lead to limited supplementary resources and interaction to the documentation of the child’s conceptual understanding as a historical process that develops over time. In response to these methodological challenges, researchers used digital artefacts within a digital study design firstly to capture diverse aspects of the child’s experience and then, to combine these aspects and interpreted them as a whole recreating the science experience of the child and how the child was positioned within this experience.

Adopting a cultural-historical perspective, researchers, used digital methods not to explore children’s developing conceptual understandings through ‘questioning’, but instead, digital methods were used to examine the dynamic interactions and communications occurring between children and educators as they participated in the Conceptual PlayWorld. Using digital artefacts, researchers were able to capture and later analyse, subtleties of development reflected in children’s overall science experience. Through analysing these subtleties of development available in the digital data, researchers were able to digitally reconstruct the child’s embodied science experience and gain insight into the process of science concept formation as it was occurring for the children within the context of the Conceptual PlayWorld.

In conclusion, from a cultural-historical standpoint, the chapter suggests a dialectic reading of what is digitally recorded and documented as a means to deepen the analysis. It has highlighted how, through applying the dynamic interpretive process of analysis, whereby digital data is revisited, in conjunction with having digital data from differing perspectives of the same moment (multiple cameras), theoretical insights into the process of concept formation for very young children can be gained. The chapter contributes to a better understanding of the affordances cultural-historical digital visual methods can offer, to researchers seeking to examine the everyday lived experiences of very young children within the context of the educational setting. Contributing to a much-needed methodological ‘path’ (White, 2009) better insight into the lived moments of infants in early childhood educational settings can be gained and educational provision to our youngest learners enhanced.