Video in Project-Based Education FAQ

Q: What is a group, ideally speaking?>
This question comes from the Phillipines where a student is working on a project about prostitution. She is doing a Communications study and this project is for her masters thesis.
A: As is mentioned in the book and articles, MAP work is groupwork. Not only is it almost impossible to work on you own, it is also not advisable in the MAP approach (see page 12).
I will elaborate on the question what a group is in the MAP approach:
A group is a couple of people (3 to 10 individuals) that share the same interest. They are forming a group because of a common interest in a certain content. They are driven by the action perspective that is involved in this content.
To name a few examples:
- Factory workers join in their concern of losing their job and start a project to raise attention for their problems, in order to keep their jobs
- Red Cross volunteers needing audiovisual material for their promotion activities form a group and make a tape they can show on county meetings of elderly people.
- Children who think that their neighbourhood gets polluted form a group to investgate the causes.
- Etc. etc.

(FREQUENTLY) ASKED QUESTIONS

Before MAP questions

It is mainly the action perspective (see further the boxed text in MAP p. 25) that makes a group do certain things. The MAP approach is usable when the individuals in the group have a *shared* content. This does not necessary mean that they all share the same opinion about prostitution, pollution, the factory, etc. The work of the group can benefit very much from sometimes opposing viewpoint on the theme of the project. In your case, the content would come from one person (i.e. you). This has several severe drawbacks:
- It makes your own viewpoint vulnerable. Someone could say something like: " Pfff, it's only you who has these opinions about prostitution".
- You will get little content driven response or feedback from your groupmembers. They will probably give form driven response which is of less importance, certainly in the early stages of the model. Form really matters in stages 10 and 11.
- You will not be very trustworthy to the target group. And, IMHO, in this prostitution project a lot of trust is needed. When you research, let's say, 10 stakeholders in the prostitution and you talk to them, with only groupmembers that are doing their work, you end up with poorer research results. And who says you are the best to do ... (fill in some kind of activity).
- You cannot handle all the work after the project on your own.
- You cannot expect paid students (your provisional idea to get people for the project) to handle the camera in on a content based way. They will do their work either faithfull (which faith? whose faith?) or according to the t.v. standards (which makes your project less trustworthy).
When you want to contact this student, send me an and email.

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Q: From what perspective is the researcher really coming, for example, positivist, constructionist, etc.? This question comes from the Phillipines where a student is working on a project about prostitution. She is doing a Communications study and this project is for her doctorate's thesis
A: A difficult question, because in the question different viewpoints are expressed:
1. Is the researcher a positivist, a constructionist etc.
This is a neutral question. It must be coming from someone who knows about research and research movements and trends.
2. Is the researcher someting but pretends something else.
This is the word 'really' in the question. The answer to 2 is relatively simple. You have to find out. IMHO most group members are quite honest about their viewpoints and where they come from.
In the projects, I see great differences in research approach:
- Groups that do not have such explicit notions about research. They are driven by 'curiosity' , 'anger', 'anxiety', etc. and the urge to understand things. When they have done their research up to a certain standard (time, involvment, stakeholders, money, etc.) they say someting like "Ok, now we know X" and proceed. - Groups that are aware of their position as researcher and want to do their research according to a certain methodology: - Positivist attitudes (I have had some groups),
- Structuralist notions of 'truth' ,
- Postmodern thinking,
- Participative enquiry (quite popular and efficient)
- Etc. etcl

It is not for me to say which one is best. It depends so much on the group and its goals. I stongly recommend further reading in:
Handbook of Qualitative Research

by Norman K. Denzin and Yvonna S. Lincoln (editors)
SAGE, Tousand Oaks, 1994
Part II, Major Paradigms and and Perspectives, (about 250 pages, 16 articles from different authors) gives an excellent introduction. Peter Reasons article: "Three approaches to Participative" (p 324-339 Inquiry is a good introduction.

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Q: What is the researcher's relation to the subject? If the researcher is coming to the project with an almost fixed idea of what to research on, is he/she willing to let go of the idea and be open to what might come up in group discussions (i.e., the product of Stages 1-4)? This question comes from the Phillipines where a student is working on a project about prostitution. She is doing a Communications study and this project is for her masters thesis
A: Researchers, or group members as I would prefer to call them, can have many different relations to the subject. Sometimes group members have quite fixed and unmovable ideas about the subject. They usually get comments from other group members (" You say X, but I have heard of Xa and Xb..."). When a group in total has already fixed ideas on the subject and the research, I ask them things like:
" Why do research when all is allready clear?" And I could continue, depening on the answer, "You seem to have quite clear ideas, so skip research. What you will make looks like a propaganda video, because only your viewpoint will be in it. Better do not produce it yourself but hire a company to get your idea on tape. They are better in doing these things.
I could add: "It also seems that you do not see this as a 'learning experience'. If this is the case, I cannot facilitate your process, because I am a MAP facilitator and not a video-production facilitator."
---------------- To you personally:
I hope this is an ansewer you can do someting with.
Here is another answer:
Good one, but a problematic one for you I think. Are you a researcher or a facilitator in this project? IMHO, you are at this moment in the project neither of them. You are someone with an opinion on prostitution and an urge to change things (to be brief). To guide this process you adapt MAP to your needs. And you have an obligation to fullfill as a student. This process is guided by university rules.

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Q: What skills or traits must the researcher cultivate in him/herself to be a good facilitator of the group?
A:This question is interesting for many people. You do not need to be a researcher, or anything to be a faciltiator. When you see yourself as a researcher in the process, you cannot be a good faciltiator of the group. The other way around is also true. When you are a group member, it is very difficult to faciltiate the group process.
As facilitators I have seen professors, housewives, factory workers, teachers, students, fathers, etc. According to my experience I have seen good and bad faciltiators. Fathers with a experience with video sometimes have the tendency to take over the work of children and act as not so good facilitators. Housewives with no experience in video, but lots of experiience in raising children seem very good facilitators.

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Stage 1: Deciding the topic/conducting self-research

Q: What questions can the facilitator ask the group in the first four stages (self-research, problematizing, etc.) to help them come up with the "best" supposition?
A: This question is almost impossible to answer because it is too all embracing. And I think it is also because it is impossible to define the "best" supposition.
An example to clarify this:
I could evaluate the supposition: "It would be better to stop angling eel in our lake", as a usable one for a group of 11 year old pupils in a primary school. With this supposition they could identify 'involved parties' and do research.
The same supposition, worded by a group of biology students I would qualify as superficial.

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Stage2: Problematizing

Stage 3: Choise of theme

Stage 4: Forming a Supposition

Stage 5: Research

Stage 6: Analysis

Stage 7: The Proposition

Stage 8: Choise of target group

Stage 9: Choise of medium

Stage 10: Choise of form

Stage 11: Production

Stage 12: Presentation and Evaluation

When MAP is finished

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LAST UPDATE 1st July 1999
End of FAQ
Below this line the faq is 'under construction'.
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----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Basic Mapfaq questions layout:
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Question Q: Question Whose question?(optional) A: Answer.

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Question: Aside from those mentioned in your book, can you tell me of other instances in which the MAP model was successfully applied? Q: Aside from those mentioned in your book, can you tell me of other instances in which the MAP model was successfully applied? This question Whose question?(optional) A: A summary of projects, partly from my memory, partly from videomaterial, audiotapes, exhibitions, books, that are in my collection. The successfull application of MAP? Sometimes they were successfull, sometimes not. - A group of invalid elderly ppl.

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