Validity and reliability

The study is an in-depth exploration of how two teachers involve groups of children in technology-mediated story creation processes in ECEC. It is a multiple case study with a replication design (Yin, 2014). The same research protocol was followed throughout both cases including a pilot study. This pilot study was conducted prior to the main data construction to ensure the quality of the study and strengthen the study’s validity and reliability (Yin, 2014).

The pilot study consisted of one teacher and six children (age 4-5 years) and took place in a third kindergarten. The overall experience with the research design and the research protocol in the pilot study was good;

however, some changes were made. 1) In the pilot study, the teacher asked many technical questions about the applications; hence, to provide the teachers in the main study with some technical help, I invited them to a workshop during the preparation stage, described in Section 4.4.1.

2) Based on experiences from the pilot study, I decided to video-record all activities during the creation process to capture the multimodal complexity and all the layers of information being generated simultaneously as well as the interactions and communication among the participants. 3) Some of the questions in the semi-structured interview-guides were changed slightly. Some questions were too specific, e.g., about technological competence, and they were grouped into broader themes, e.g., competence. Some questions were added, e.g., “What is a story?”, because the teachers continued to use this concept during the process without explaining it. 4) During the pilot study, the teacher and I spent 5-10 minutes together after the activities with the children. This was a valuable time for reflection, questions and sharing information, which I included in the main study. Overall, the pilot study provided important experiences for the main study.

The participating teachers were recruited among participants in VEBB (Mangen et al., 2019) and had some prior knowledge of tablets, digital picture book apps, and shared dialogue-based reading. One of them had made a few multimodal digital stories with kindergarten children previously; however, the other was doing it for the first time. In line with the findings from a recent national survey (Fjørtoft et al., 2019) in which 60-65% of kindergarten staff had never created movies/animations, digital stories or digital books with the children (see Section 2.3), the participating teachers can be described as quite “typical” Norwegian kindergarten teachers.

To strengthen the study’s validity and reliability, I have provided details of the choices I have made throughout the process. Based on experiences from the pilot study, I chose to use only one camera when video-recording (see Section 4.4.2). In the pilot study, I observed that there was a large possibility that the activities would take place in different places within the room, and it would be difficult to find a good location for a second camera. I also thought of capturing the activity on the tablet through screen recording, which would have been interesting; however, because that was not a distinct focus of this study, I chose not to pursue it. These choices of what to include and how to frame the focus of the video-recordings have influenced the analytical possibilities of this study (Heikkilä & Sahlström, 2003; Luff & Heath, 2012). However, aspects from the field observations and my reflections as a present observer have also informed the analysis.

Through a rigorous analysis of various perspectives of the two cases—

the creation processes, the participants, and the products—a concrete, context-dependent body of knowledge of the rich descriptions of these two creation processes has been constructed in collaboration with the participants (Alvesson & Sköldberg, 2018; Creswell, 2013). This closeness to real-life contexts is understood as an advantage of case study research (Flyvbjerg, 2007; Morgan, 2014). To explore and understand what happens during a complex process and to be able to grasp all the

layers of information happening at the same time, it is a major advantage to be present and observe the process and pedagogical practice as they unfold (Flyvbjerg, 2007). However, the creation process would not have happened without me; hence, my presence influences the process. Thus, I have sought to provide a detailed picture of how I analysed the material including my reflections, preunderstanding, and interpretations. My interpretations are based on my preunderstanding, subjective experience and past events (Alvesson & Sköldberg, 2018). Therefore, I have reflected upon, demonstrated that I am aware of, and clarified my preunderstanding throughout the research process and the writing of this thesis (the articles and the synopsis) to make the research as transparent as possible (see Sections 4.2 and 4.6). To validate the preliminary findings, these have been discussed with the teachers who confirmed the analysis of the activities and the creation process (see Jernes & Alvestad, 2017). The participants were also given opportunity to read the articles prior submission.

This research contributes new perspectives on an aspect that is not very common in Norwegian kindergartens: the involvement of groups of young children in creation processes with digital technology (Fjørtoft et al., 2019). Thus, this research can be understood as “inspirational practice” for teachers and practitioners in ECEC and early childhood teacher education and will hopefully motivate others to include groups of children in similar technology-mediated story creation processes.

In the next chapter, a summary of the main results of the three articles is presented.