‘I’m going to call my friend to join us': connections and challenges in online video interviews with children during COVID-19

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper explores research with children through repeated online video interviews during the COVID-19 pandemic. It provides insight into the geographical and relational affordances provided by online interviewing, including repeated online interviewing, and discusses some of the kinds of unpredictability that can uniquely arise during online interviews. We draw on a qualitative research study conducted with children in Ontario, Canada, that explored their early pandemic experiences. With attention to children’s participation, knowledge production and relationality, we reflect on the challenges, advantages and unexpected ethical moments that arose through using online video interviews. We provide a comprehensive reflection on our longitudinal, online research with children during a global crisis by focusing on three areas: building relationships in online interviews; entering and exiting children’s worlds; and unexpected ethical challenges of online interviewing. Within these three areas we provide insight into relational dynamics shaped by the online space, how online video interviews with children can provide opportunities for them to share their feelings, the importance of careful planning when exiting research projects, and how online engagements provided relational spaces for understanding, building rapport, finding comfort, listening, and sharing during the early days of COVID-19.