“What Does This Have To Do With Me?” Black Student Perspectives of Image-Based PowerPoints in BSW Classes

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this exploratory research was to find out if Black students felt that image-based PowerPoints enhanced their learning in the classroom. A previous survey was conducted in 2016 to assess satisfaction of image-only PowerPoint lectures and results indicated that Black students were significantly less satisfied with image-based PowerPoint lectures than their White classmates. Due to these results, the editor suggested that we conduct a focus group to begin to ascertain why there may be differences among satisfaction in lectures based on race of the student. The focus group met one time in October 2017 and was centered around discussing preferences of image- versus text-based PowerPoint lectures. The focus group participants reported that Black students are less likely to find that image-based PowerPoints enhanced learning because of the lack of positive Black role models and culture in PowerPoint slides. Results further confirmed that Black students do share a common interest in image-based PowerPoint with their fellow White students despite their also feeling that they have no personal connection with the images.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Dana Davis

Dana Davis is associate professor and chair at Youngstown State University.

Andrea Barrick

Andrea Barrick is an assistant professor at Shippensburg University.

Kevin Talley

Kevin Talley is a graduate of Youngstown State University.