Kids Wore Video Cameras to Preschool, For Ohio State University Study

A recent study conducted by Ohio State University had children wear video cameras on their head for two hours during a school day to study classroom interactions from the child’s perspective. The researchers wanted to know the type of linguistic environment the kids were exposed to at their preschool. 

Previous studies focused on observing how teachers behaved in the classroom, such as how they talked to the kids. However, this study tried to pin point how often, and with whom the children were hearing complex sentences and sophisticated language. They also observed the types of interactions children had with their peers vs thier teachers and for what duration of time each interaction lasted. 

The study involved 13 children, ages 3 and 4. They wore the wireless head-mounted camera on a randomly assigned day during a four-day period. They wore it for one hour in the morning, during which they participated in different kinds of activities: some involving the whole class, and some where the kids were free to choose what to do in various centers around the classroom.

It was found that children interacted more with the teacher than their peers. According to Science Daily,“When someone was talking directly to a child wearing a camera in class, 81 percent of the time it was the teacher.

Kids also heard nearly all sophisticated language from their teachers -- 92 percent of all complex sentences came from teachers...But there was wide variation. Six of the 13 children interacted with their peers almost as many times as they interacted with their teachers. In addition, four children interacted for longer periods of time with their peers, relative to the average interaction length among all the children.”

“I think they should definitely expand on this experiment because it could lead to new findings in learning” Taylor Sammis says.

This study is part of a larger five-year, $4.5 million project called “Early Learning Ohio” funded by the federal Institute of Education Sciences. Further research on educational psychology can be utilized to learn how to develop and prepare kids for success in their future education and learning.