I’m an interview with parents.
Based on my excessively long and tedious
document I did some thinking and concluded some conclusions. Armed with the
knowledge and understanding gained from reading and secondary research,
illustrated in my document, I made some reasonable assumptions.
Or I took a read of my document, had a look
at some of the notes I’d made and evaluated the stuff I’d gotten to know. I did
a thought shower, a brainstorm and a spider diagram to see what started to make
sense, organizing my thoughts in a semi-coherent way.
Theories of cognitive development and
learning within a child’s mind supported the idea of co-operative play being a
concept worthy of testing, Bandura, Erikson and a fair few more go on to second
third and forty fifth this idea, adding techniques and approaches that work
collaboratively with the idea. Market research indicated the room for such a
notion to be explored without too many of the answers existing, how exciting.
SO. I had my theory, my idea, my go to guy.
How can Interactive Media be used to engage
children aged 3-5years ?
I say co-operative play is a bloody good
guess.
Why tho eh.
Artefact one is an interview with some
parents. I chose parents because:
My research exaggerated the importance of
the parent/child relationship, in play, in learning, in development, in getting
a nappy changed. I’ve spent a fair bit of time with my own mom, she’s useful,
and I wouldn’t be where I am without her, obviously. I’ve spent some time
around her and my younger brother, and experienced how I’m his best friend when
everything’s right with the world, but if his heads full of snot or his eyes
are heavy he needs nobody but my mom. In the field observation! She’s his base
and he’s most comfortable and himself with her.
The
theories I’d explored through my document built the foundations for this and
all had in common the importance of the relationship. Bowlby talks of a
goal-corrected partnership, in which the wants and desires of the parent take
over and begin to shape the narrative of the child’s life and of the attachment
theory (you shouldn’t need that one explaining)… Vygostky mentions the idea of
guided participation, the zone of proximal development (how much more a child
can do with help of a wiser adult) and sociocultural learning, development
motivated by the external world and relationships… Children communicate through
their parents, so for me to understand how interactive media can be used to
engage through co-operative play I need to understand the relationship.
Essentially, the relationship is my data.
Parents Passion = Relationship Relationship = Data
What I did.
Initially I thought I’d do a few telephone
interviews with friends and parents I knew, of all age ranges. They’d be quick,
I could do a lot of them, and I could record it easy as pie. I did some
research into the sort of data different techniques and approaches would
provide me with, and realized quickly that understanding a relationship is less
about the individuals self awareness, but more about observation and
understanding. The tangents and unorganized, natural bi-products of the
interview would illustrate the lifestyle and relationship, the importance of
building a rapport and being comfortable with an interviewee became more apparent.
So I flicked the telephone interview and survey idea into the bin, despite
their simplicity and convenience and set about finding me some parents.
Long and long of it is. I called a local
parent and toddler group and asked to go down for an informal chat, to ask 9
open-ended questions about technology and their lifestyles. I went armed with
consent forms, question answered forms and a brief introduction to my project
sheet. I was lucky enough to be able to find a group with the attendance of
parents and children, so although for this artefact parents are the subjects,
the relationship between the mother/father and child and the subsequent
interactions and narratives would be something I was able to record. I spoke to
2 parents, both of a similar age, under 30, but of different lifestyles and
backgrounds. I recorded the verbal
transaction between myself and the two parents via my smartphone, after talking
to both ladies about my project.
What I wanted.
I fancied knowing what sort of parenting
techniques both family’s took on to test the ideas of guided participation. I
wanted to know parental concerns on the exposure of technology to younger
children to use as a sort of guideline and rule system to build artefacts that
would with those concerns to keep parents on board with my project. I wanted to
better understand the parent/child relationship, and to get an idea of the sort
of content to include.
More so than that, what I wanted was
validation, that my project and idea was right. I’m an idiot though, that’s not
even a slightly correct approach. More on that in the evaluation.
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