Approaching classroom dialogues – Using spy glasses for data collection

Many studies within educational research seek to investigate students’ dialogues for studying learning situations. One difficulty is however to approach students’ discussions in action. In this paper we discuss the possibilities of using spy glasses in order to capture both students’ talk and their actions in the science classroom. This methodological approach makes it possible to come close to all students’ actions when working in small groups or doing laboratory work. This means that the spy glasses register their discussions with each other but also what they are doing with the laboratory equipment, what they write or what they focus on in a written text. This methodological approach provides a very rich data material and many hours of recordings for one single lesson. In order to approach the comprehensive data material we suggest clear analytic foci and iterated analytic phases. The preliminary results show that spy glasses can be an important analytic tool for capturing student dialogues and studying learning situations in the classroom.