## 4 Implications for Research Design when Using a Socio-Cultural Perspective
#### 4.1.3 Method and Design  
The methods and design of this study are influenced by the socio-cultural perspective on learning [30], combined with perspectives on the significance of visual aspects on learning [36]. To grasp the learning conditions the study was therefore carried out in the school context. Three different primary schools in one municipality in Sweden participated, including four teachers and four social science classes (grades 4-6) with altogether 98 students aged 10-13 years. The study was divided into two phases. In the first phase, the teachers were introduced to the tool and tried to make educational plans according to the curriculum, organizing the content and the task by involving use of the Open Statistics eXplorer platform and its storytelling methods for exploring demographics indicators. This means that educational plans, Vislets, were produced based on indicators from the World dataBank. The Vislets were published on the teachers' educational blogs on the Internet (Figure 6). In phase two, the student groups worked with the different Vislets in all their social science classes for a period of 2-4 weeks. Figure 5: Example of an interactive educational document based on public Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) data. The document includes an educational text, as well as a map, motion chart, snapshots and time series—_i.e._, the methodological concept. There were 24 or 25 students working in each class in social science. In each class, one teacher instructed and supported the students. The students were grade 4, 5 and 6 students, 10-11 years, 11-12 years and 12-13 years old, respectively. To decide the setting and content of the Vislets the teachers analyzed the curriculum perspective and educational goals. The students in a class worked together in pairs at one computer. The different classes worked with the Vislets for a period of 2-4 weeks. The Vislets the teachers produced concerned three different regional levels: the national level, the continent and the whole world. * Grade 4, learnt about a region at the national level (Sweden) and the content was about living conditions-the students were supposed to compare differences and similarities between different parts of the country. * Grade 5, worked at the continental level (Europe) and the content covered; living conditions, populations (population density, age distribution, _etc._) and education, work and economies. * Grade 6, penetrated global issues including; energy supply, production and use, water access and use of fresh water, population growth, life expectancy, infant deaths, and environmental issues, e.g., CO2 levels, and economic wealth. In a study of learning within a socio-cultural perspective the focus is on the _process_ of learning rather than the outcome or the results. In this context three concurrent factors ought to be considered, namely: How do intellectual tools develop? How does the use of physical artifacts develop? and What do communication and co-operation look like in collective human contexts [44]? To address these factors the study's methodological position was connected to the growing body of video-based studies of social interaction and the use of technologies [45]. Related to this three different qualitative methods for collecting empirical data were chosen, (1) video observations to (a) follow the students when working with the tool, and (b) focus on the communication between the children, and (c) the ways the children were interacting with the tool and each other; (2) speak-aloud interviews to investigate the students' experiences, learning processes and understanding when using the Vislets; and (3) document collection of the students' own work produced from their learning process, in order to analyze mediation and meaning making. The method of data collection was selected so as to give an insight into how intellectual tools develop, how the use of physical artifacts develops and what the communication and cooperation looked like in a collective human working context-the school.