As digital video technologies develop for recording, viewing, and organising data, it is useful to examine the relationship between technologies and analytical procedures. Accessible technology now enables researchers to mark, annotate, and compare digital video recordings. Such features encourage and facilitate a more comprehensive examination of the non-verbal components of interaction than text-centered approaches. Digital video editing software offers researchers the potential to modify analytical procedures in ways that enhance the use of recorded data and expand analytical concepts for the study of interaction.
Video recordings of biology students, interacting as they work on a genetics assignment, are discussed in regard to the features of video editing software that enable constant and immediate access, in one computer window, to recorded data, transcript extracts, and analytical comments. Particular attention is paid to the use of timelines, video markers, and the placement of transcripts of students’ utterances and analysts’ comments on the video images. Such features supported analytical procedures that sustained an emphasis on the primary recorded data. This led to increased reflexivity among primary data, analytical categories, and transcripts, with the result of increased attention to the importance of pointing in the task-related discourse and the students’ understandings of genetics concepts.