Enhancing visual literacy of students through photo elicitation

Abstract

In this photo elicitation assignment, each student must take, select, and interpret a picture about a social issue that he/she has learned about in class. The student must then craft either a sensory poem, or answer the SHOWeD questions as designed by Shaffer and modified by Wang, which facilitates the student’s interpretation of the picture. As a teaching tool, photo elicitation offers a range of pedagogical values; it enables visualization of students’ everyday experiences, elicits personal meaning and emotion, promotes real-life and active learning, engenders critical consciousness, and enhances the visual literacy of students in terms of their visual “writing” and “thinking” skills.

Keywords:

• visual literacy
• photo elicitation
• active learning
• higher education

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 In literature, two phrases – Photo Elicitation and Photovoice – are used interchangeably to represent the use of photographs in research or teaching. The author chose the phrase “Photo Elicitation” because the focus of the activity is to elicit information that may otherwise elude us (Harper, 2002, pp. 22-23). The author does not use the phrase “Photovoice” because it normally entails an active engagement of the community in the form of action research (Kurtz & Wood, 2014, p. 547).

2 This is a four to six-page long assignment, which allows for the discussion of only a photo. Nevertheless, students may include more photos if need be.

3 The author learned about the use of Sensory Poem in a Photovoice training workshop organized by Photovoice (https://photovoice.org/)