Double Stimulation and Transformative Agency through Video Modalities with Young Children: A cross-national study of pedagogic relationships in families

Our research community has limited understanding about the potential of video. This paper uses double stimulation and transformative agency to analyse two video modalities, extraction, and reflection; in a study about learning as it develops through family interactions. As researchers we were interested in children’s motives. However, the children were young; therefore, posing a methodological problem. Drawing on video footage and 24 film elicitation interviews with children and fathers from 12 families in Norway, England, Hong Kong and Mumbai, India; we present case study examples using double stimulation to analyse video. We gathered between 5-10 hours of footage about father-child interactions from each family.  To analyse video modalities through double stimulation, we identified the first stimulus, second stimulus, and manifestations of transformative agency. We found by combining double stimulation with video for the purposes of extraction, the non-visible becomes visible. The combination indicates opportunities for development that generate the kind of qualitative transformations, which imply child development can be seen in a new way. By combining double stimulation with video for reflection, researchers can trace outward affective and cognitive consequences of the ‘mirror effect’, back to children’s conflict of motives, and how they decide to interpret what they see. Double stimulation therefore widens the potential of video. It shows video as an effective auxiliary stimulus to address the problem of researching young children’s motives.