“These are my camera glasses”: Wearable Digital Video Glasses for Recording and Examining Young Children’s Social Interactions

Abstract

As new technologies emerge and evolve, possibilities open up for their use in research. In this article, we consider wearable digital video glasses as a data collection tool in qualitative research involving child participants. We draw on data from a recording made during our pilot study of the ways young children’s social interactions produced learning opportunities during family shopping experiences. The recording was produced when the digital video glasses were worn by one six-year old boy when shopping with his family. Four extracts from the recording are analysed briefly to demonstrate how data collected through use of the digital video glasses informed transcription and the analysis. Issues and implications for use of the wearable technology are discussed focusing on methodology and methods, implications for transcription, benefits and limitations as a data collection tool, ethical considerations and applicability for researching young children’s social interactions.