digital video is not strictly separated as a singled out artefact, and in the presentation of findings references to the working process are made when valuable and beneficial. This is consistent with the students’ agency that is emphasised within social semiotic theory of multimodality and is also reflected in the word choices in the second research question: “how do the students use …”. The preunderstanding of and insights into the students’ working process that I have, thus, influences the analysis of the digital video. This is not necessarily a negative factor, but offers a valuable insight; but it is important to call attention to my role as a researcher in the analytical process. Also, as mentioned above, the analysis of the digital video emphasises the meaning potential of the different semiotic resources used, underlining that it is not possible to say what different semiotic resources mean exactly, but it is possible to describe the meanings they will allow image producers and viewers to create.
the extent to which the trustworthiness is addressed is to view the study in full.
Assessing criteria for interpretive research in the human and educational sciences needs to be consistent with the presuppositions of interpretive research, which include recognition that situations can be analysed from a variety of perspectives, and that the researcher’s knowledge, background, and relation to what is studied can influence the choice of analytical foci. In order to provide the reader with sufficient base to consider the trustworthiness and reason of the study, researchers in the interpretive research field need to explicitly and transparently make clear personal knowledge, research methods, data generation, and data analysis; this is also referred to as confirmability (Lincoln & Guba, 1985) or reflexivity (Schwartz-Shea &
Yanow, 2012; see also Gerber, Abrams, Curwood & Magnifico, 2016).
How researchers disclose their presuppositions, such as sharing the beliefs that underpin their methodological decisions, is crucial in establishing trustworthiness. Interpretive research proceedes from the understanding that the perspective and position of the researcher shapes all research, and that reflexivity is an attitude of attending systematically to the context or object of study, especially to the effect of the researcher at every step of the research process. Since no researcher can be truly objective, confirmability or reflexivity depends on how a researcher reflects on and discloses such issues.
Reflexivity is thus understood as researchers’ recognition of their precedence in the interpretations made. Such awareness extended throughout the research process; to what extent this study deals with reflexivity is up to the reader to judge. I have tried to make the research process as transparent and reflexive as possible by reflecting on the research design, methods, considerations in selection of critical incidents for analysis, presuppositions for transcription, and analytical tools for understanding the empirical material (see particularly Chapter 4). The disclosure of interpretive presuppositions and how the choice of perspective is crucial to what this study can accomplish is something I have touched upon already in the first sentences of this thesis, using photography as a metaphor for this research. This sould not be viewed as excuses for what the
study cannot do, but as a conscious reflection on how research is bound to the frames, perspectives, and angles the researcher chooses.
A rich description of research methods and analytical principles also reinforces the dependability of the study, showing that the findings are consistent in relation to the purpose, theoretical outsets, and methodological choices. Besides reinforcing the dependability by understanding the logic of inquiry that links the research questions, theory, methods, and findings, other researchers should also be able to repeat the study. This study is transparent in the analytical framework, and the theoretical presuppositions of the analytical framework are thoroughly presented and can be performed by other researchers – with respect to the researcher and the students as interpreters. A step-by-step explanation of how the process of analysis is done (see Section 4.4) and the presentation of findings (Chapter 5) further illustrates this in action. The presentation of findings complements the description of the process of analysis, and furthers an understanding of the process of analysis.
The presentation of findings is also fundamental to the trustworthiness of a study. The process of analysis must be as as transparent and believable as possible in order to establish its credibility and establish confidence in the “truth” of the findings.
Often credibility is assured by demonstrating prolonged engagement (Lincoln & Guba, 1985, pp. 301–304), by spending sufficient time in the field to learn and understand the culture and social setting of interest. My involvement with the field for this particular study was not particularly long (about six weeks), but my engagement with the field should be viewed not only in relation to this particular study; it is based in my previous experience and knowledge of the field as teacher and teacher educator.
Credibility can also be addressed by persistent observation (Lincoln &
Guba, 1985, pp. 303–304), identifying the characteristics that are most relevant to the issue being pursued and focusing on them in detail: “[i]f prolonged engagement provides scope, persistent observation provides depth” (Lincoln & Guba, 1985, p. 304). In this study, an in-depth analysis of the students’ work and working process
were the focus, supporting the choice of persistent observation rather than prolonged engagement. Persistent observation was facilitated by the use of video recordings offering the possibility to go back to the material on several occasions and study it thoroughly. In the presentation of findings, the excerpts of the students’ working process and the screen shots of the students’ digital video are included to reinforce the credibility of the findings.
Transferability is described by Lincoln and Guba (1985) as a way of achieving description in sufficient detail to evaluate the extent to which the conclusions are transferable to other times, settings, situations, and people. Once again, this is established by a thorough description, or thick description (Lincoln & Guba, 1985, p. 316).
Although the study was focused on only one group of students, I argue that the study contains findings that can be transferable to other contexts; perhaps not in terms of qualitatively distinct results, but in terms of indications of the possibilities for negotiating interpretations that the transmediation process encourages and requests and the spaces for interpretation this process facilitates, as well as how practice development might be facilitated in educational contexts.