visual literacy essay

Visual Literacy: Definition and Impact Essay

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Definition: Visual Literacy

Visual literacy as a universal language, impact of visual literacy in communication and global understanding.

According to Dondis (1994), visual literacy is not a viable reality. It is a paradox. It is the capability of sighted and intelligent people. Visual literacy is beyond just seeing and making visual images. It implies understanding the process of seeing and sharing meaning with a predictable universality. Whereas, according to Brian Kennedy, visual literacy is the ability to construct meaning from images. He articulates that visual literacy is not a skill; it uses skills as a toolbox.

It is a critical thinking technique that enhances intellectual capacity and integrates our senses. Both Dondis and Kennedy agree that visual literacy enhances meaning and understanding of what one sees and the way one lives. In contrast to this, Dondis explains that visual literacy is a paradox and not yet a viable reality, Kennedy emphases that we actually learn visuals before learning verbal sounds, digits, and letters. He adds that one needs to train one’s visual capacity to extract meaning from images and recognize visual literacy in the curriculum (Kennedy, 2012).

Visual literacy can impact communication and global understanding. It is a multimodal, interdisciplinary, and collaborative universal language. Visual literacy is an imaginative process of seeing something that happens with one’s eyes and actualizing that in one’s mind. As a universal language, visual literacy is far-sighted and visionary. Everything is an image, and as a language, visual literacy requires cognition and memory to remember.

Visual literacy constructs meaning and understanding from images while integrating the capacity of one’s senses. People actually understand sign language before understanding printed words. Thus, as a universal language, visuals are comprehended faster. Everything in one’s environment and surrounding comprises of images and texts.

Visual literacy integrates the images and texts to bring out the meaning and global understanding. Visual literacy, as a language, enhances seeing, one looks to really see, describe, analyze, interpret, extract meaning, and communicate. 90% of information around the world is taken visually. One needs to know another language to understand visuals. The power of understanding visual images brings out sense and impacts one’s emotions. Visual literacy enhances and promotes communication and lifestyle. As one goes around his/her environment and outside his/her house, a person is able to look, see, describe, analyze, and interpret visual images. Visual literacy is essential, and every individual needs it to some extent.

The visual literacy, as a language, comprises data that can be used for composing and understanding messages at different levels. Visual literacy enhances visualization which creates a mental picture or image. This is useful in helping the learner comprehend or conceptualize information. One is able to conceptualize and extract meaning by developing mental pictures. Visual literacy has the ability to impact young children by conceptualizing visuals, before developing an understanding of the fluency or vocabulary of the hard words. Visual literacy presents a relationship of visual skills to instructional tasks.

Visual literacy aids memorization. Visual literacy enables people to gain meaning from the visuals, what they see, and are able to communicate with others through the creation of such images. Visual literacy enables people to understand the meaning, communicate messages based on the cultural context, and analyze the composition and stylistic principles. It also allows the evaluation of discipline, aesthetic merits, and synergistic and interactive quality of the work.

Dondis, D. (1994). Visual Literacy . NY: McGraw Hill.

Kennedy, B. (2012). Visual Literacy and Why We Need It . Web.

• Language: Evolution and Universal Features
• Language Dominance and Minorities' Languages
• Reading Commentary About Literacy Articles: What Does Literacy Mean?
• Problems of Reading and Literacy
• American Paradox
• Linguistic Determinism and Linguistic Relativity
• What Is the Relationship between Language and Humanity?
• Native Language Endangered: Issues and Factors
• Language: the Art of Translation
• English Language Use in the Academic Arena
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

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Bibliography

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Visual Literacy in Practice: Use of Images in Students’ Academic Work

Krystyna K. Matusiak, Chelsea Heinbach, Anna Harper, and Michael Bovee *

Digital technology has changed the way in which students use visual materials in academic work and has increased the importance of visual literacy skills. This paper reports the findings of a research project examining undergraduate and graduate students’ visual literacy skills and use of images in the context of academic work. The study explored types of visual resources used, the role that images play in academic papers and presentations, and the ways students select, evaluate, and process images. The findings of the study indicate that students lack skills in selecting, evaluating, and using images. Students use a range of visual resources in their presentations but rarely use images in papers.

Introduction

“Because we’re flooded with images and they’re so available. You can copy and paste them in a second, you can throw it on your Facebook wall and nobody’s stopping you” (Participant M, Interview).

Digital technology has facilitated an unprecedented growth of information and increased the availability of digital images and other nontextual formats. The web, social media, and mobile technology have contributed to the ease of viewing and sharing images on a global scale. This digital transformation is not only associated with the proliferation of information resources, but also with the increasing importance of the image as a mode of knowledge representation. 1 Image users are no longer only viewers, but are also creators of and active contributors to visual communication. These factors have dramatically changed the ways in which students use information resources and present their academic work. In the academic environment, which has traditionally been dominated by text, the influx of visual resources has sparked a debate about the place of the image in university education. 2 James Elkins calls for images to become central to student education and for literacy that “can be achieved through images as well as texts and numbers.” 3

Visual literacy emerges as a set of essential competencies for contemporary learners. 4 Being surrounded by visual media does not necessarily mean that students know how to find appropriate images, understand their meaning and cultural context, or integrate them into academic work. Many scholars recognize visual literacy as an important but often overlooked issue in higher education and advocate for teaching it alongside critical reading and other literacies. 5 The Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) proposed a set of standards for visual literacy competency for higher education. 6 The intent of this paper is to shift attention to the world of practice and to report students’ perspectives on the use of images in academic work. Its authors report the findings of an empirical study that investigated visual literacy skills in the context of use. The purpose of this research is to contribute qualitative data to the visual literacy discourse and to inform instruction in higher education.

Literature Review

The concept of visual literacy has been discussed in research literature since the late 1960s. The early definitions of visual literacy were formulated in the predigital era and coexisted with other literacy types, though they often remained on the margins of the discourse about literacy in higher education. The early understanding of visual literacy often overlapped with media literacy and referred to competencies in using and interpreting a variety of visual resources, including still images, photography, film, video, and mass media. 7 According to Paul Messaris, visual literacy refers to the comprehension of any type of visual media, the awareness of visual manipulation, and aesthetic appreciation. 8

The emphasis of early definitions was placed on visual cognition and perception, highlighting the processes involved in understanding and interpreting resources constructed in the visual mode. 9 Skills in creating or manipulating images were generally not discussed, since visual design was considered a domain of artists and craftsmen. David Considine was an exception in this regard. One of the few scholars that included proficiencies in creating images in his definition, Considine emphasized that “visually literate students should be able to produce and interpret visual messages.” 10

The shift toward understanding visual literacy as a multidimensional concept has been evident in research literature since late 2000s, 11 at which point certain authors acknowledged a transformative impact of digital technology that not only increased the relevance of visual literacy, but also connected it to image production and communication tools. Anne Morgan Spalter and Andries van Dam proposed a definition of digital visual literacy that encompasses abilities in evaluating and interpreting images as well as skills in producing effective visual communications. 12 In the Visual Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education, visual literacy is defined as “a set of abilities that enables an individual to effectively find, interpret, evaluate, use, and create images and visual media.” 13 This multifaceted definition was used in the current study to guide research design and to investigate students’ abilities in understanding visual content as well as their skills in selecting, evaluating, and using images.

The Visual Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education provide a foundation for teaching visual literacy at the college level. The standards identify seven areas of competencies for visually literate individuals, including needs assessment and skills in finding, interpreting, evaluating, and using images. Design and creation of meaningful images and visual media features prominently as a separate standard. The framework also outlines a standard for the understanding of ethical, legal, and social issues surrounding image creation and use. 14 The ACRL Visual Literacy Competency Standards are based on the Information Literacy Competency Standards , originally approved in 2000 and rescinded by the ACRL Board of Directors in 2016. 15 The new Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education (Framework) , approved in 2016, reflects the changing higher education environment and emphasizes a greater role of students in creating knowledge. 16

Research on visual literacy in higher education emphasizes the need to teach visual literacy across disciplines and embed it into core curricula. 17 In a recent publication, Michelle D. Ervine notes that, despite many efforts, higher education has not fully embraced visual literacy. She emphasizes the importance of integrating visual literacy into instructional design programs. 18 Barbara Blummer identifies five categories of strategies for teaching visual literacy at academic institutions and includes a variety of instructional scaffolds aimed at supporting students in developing visual literacy skills. 19 Case studies provide insight into faculty instructional designs and include examples of embedded activities or seminars designed specifically to develop students’ visual literacy skills. 20 Joan E. Beaudoin discusses teaching skills in interpreting and analyzing historical images to students in the library and information science (LIS) program. 21

Academic libraries are involved in promoting and teaching visual literacy through a variety of strategies, from one-shot library sessions to course-integrated instruction. Visual literacy intersects with information literacy, which has traditionally emphasized skills in selecting and evaluating resources. Benjamin R. Harris advocates for the integration of visual literacy and information literacy instruction and offers a number of practical suggestions for incorporating visual literacy into library sessions. 22 Molly J. Schoen discusses a range of skills that can be taught in one-shot library instruction sessions, such as finding trustworthy sources, evaluating the content and quality of images, examining manipulated images, understanding the implications of copyright, storing digital images, and managing citations. 23

Research evaluating students’ visual literacy skills is still limited, though some classroom case studies include assessment components. 24 Two empirical studies examine the visual literacy of college students while also conceptualizing the students as “digital natives,” a popular notion originally proposed by Marc Prensky. The “digital natives” argument posits that a younger generation of students—those who grew up with digital technology—have strong digital skills and prefer images over text. 25 Eva Brumberger examined this assumption by conducting a survey of college students and testing their skills in interpreting images and in producing visual communications. She found students’ visual literacy inadequate and concluded that “exposure to visual information does not necessarily lead to visual literacy.” 26 Richard Emanuel and Siu Challons-Lipton took another look at visual skills of digital natives in a research survey and found that students lack skills in identifying images. 27

The research examining the use of digital images in an academic environment is relatively new and often multidisciplinary. Researchers in the LIS field tend to focus on students’ image-seeking behavior rather than image use. 28 Studies have found that students begin their searches on Google Image or Web, conduct short queries, and rarely check the originating sites of images. 29 In Youngok Choi’s study, 87 percent of students used Google to locate images, and only 12.7 percent connected to a specific site. Sixty percent of the students in the sample reported conducting image search for academic tasks, such as designing a PowerPoint presentation or writing a report. 30 The participants considered several evaluation criteria, with reliability identified as a critical relevance factor in determining image usefulness. 31

Some research projects investigate faculty use of images for teaching purposes. These studies note the increasing availability of images on college campuses and faculty interest in teaching with visual materials. 32 The faculty surveyed in David Green’s study reported using images in 83 percent of courses. 33 Mary Kandiuk and Aaron Lupton examined instruction and note that faculty use more varied sources of images, though they also rely quite heavily on Google Images search. 34 Empirical studies exploring image and multimedia use in the classroom environment indicate that visual resources improve students’ engagement and enhance student learning through multiple sensory modalities. 35

There is, however, limited research on students’ use of images and visual literacy skills and competencies. This study builds on the prior research but also expands it beyond the image-seeking phase and focuses on visual literacy skills in the context of image use in academic papers and presentations.

Methodology

The purpose of this study was to examine university students’ visual literacy skills and use of images in the context of actual academic work. The study aimed to explore the types of visual resources being used in students’ academic papers and presentations and the ways in which students select, evaluate, and process images. The following questions guided the research inquiry:

RQ1: What types of visual resources do students use and what role do these resources play in their academic work and learning process?

RQ2: What are students’ skills and competencies in analyzing and evaluating images and their sources? What is students’ understanding of ethical and legal issues surrounding the use of images?

RQ3: What are students’ information practices in regard to selecting, creating, organizing, and processing of visual resources used in their academic work?

This study was exploratory in nature and adopted a Consensual Qualitative Research (CQR) approach for data collection and analysis. CQR is a method developed in the field of psychology and designed to address some limitations of qualitative research, such as the subjectivity in collecting and analyzing data by a solo researcher. 36 CQR uses multiple researchers, emphasizes rigor in data analysis, and strives for reaching consensus between research team members in analyzing and interpreting data. 37

The research team for this study consisted of four members and included a LIS faculty member, two academic librarians, and a LIS graduate student. The principal investigator consulted with researchers in counseling psychology who used CQR in their studies, and the team examined several publications that described the implementation of the method. 38

To explore potential biases that may affect interpretation of the data, all team members discussed their background, experiences with image use in academic work, and perceptions about students’ information practices. One of the researchers acknowledged that her background in art history influenced the value she placed on visual materials as information sources. The principal investigator discussed her prior research on the use of visual resources and her beliefs about the role of images in student learning. Another researcher noted that her experiences as a recent graduate student and as a teacher of a credit-bearing information literacy class influenced her beliefs about students’ practices in image use. The fourth researcher recognized that, as a currently enrolled graduate student, much of his perspective on the topic was informed by his personal experience in using images in academic papers and presentations.

Data Collection

For the purpose of this study, the researchers collected students’ papers and presentations and conducted interviews with 15 undergraduate and graduate students. Participants were selected for interviews upon submitting samples of their academic work with images. Data were collected between April and June 2016. The data collection techniques included:

• Questionnaires to gather demographic data and information about participants’ understanding of visual literacy (see appendix A).
• Visual evidence: student papers and presentations with images were collected for discussions during interviews and for further content analysis. Four papers and 28 PowerPoint presentations were collected for this study.
• Interviews provided qualitative data on students’ needs, image-seeking behavior, and visual literacy skills and competencies. A semistructured protocol was used during the interviews (see appendix B). The interviews were conducted in person with two members of the research team present. Interviews were recorded and transcribed.

The study employed a purposeful sampling strategy. It was conducted at a private, midsized university in the United States with a large graduate student population. Participants were recruited with flyers posted around campus. Submitting a paper or a presentation with images was a requirement to participate in the study. The sample size consisted of 15 participants, including seven undergraduate and eight graduate students. Ten participants identified themselves as female and five as male. Their age ranged from 18 to 31. They represented a cross section of programs in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences. Table 1 provides a summary of the participants’ backgrounds.

Data Analysis

This study employed Consensual Qualitative Research (CQR) for data analysis. The CQR approach requires a team effort and it includes three steps:

• Coding data into domains for each participant/case.
• Constructing core concepts and writing summaries for each participant/case within the domain.
• Developing categories and conducting cross case-analysis. 39

Three members of the research team were actively involved in coding the data, while the fourth member served as an auditor who reviewed the data during different stages of coding and analysis. To address the power imbalance inherent in collaborative work and to avoid “groupthink,” the researchers worked on coding of the domains independently except for the first few interviews, which were used to agree on the specific meanings of each code using examples from the transcripts. Once practices for coding were agreed upon, the team coded independently and then met regularly to discuss the domains, reach agreement, and refine the codes.

Domains represent primary topics that are developed based on questions, interview protocol, and themes that emerge from data. 40 As the first coding step in this study, a preliminary list of domains was created based on the primary interview questions and a review of student papers and presentations. The first few interviews were coded during team meetings, and the initial list was revised. Next, all interviews were coded systematically using the established domain list. The following domains were identified in this study:

• Designing presentations and papers
• Ethical and legal aspects of image use
• Image selection and evaluation
• Image use in papers and presentations
• Motivation to use images
• Practices in processing images
• Prior experience studying or working with images
• Role of images

During the second step of CQR—when the summaries and core ideas were constructed—each researcher read the data coded by domain for each participant and wrote summaries independently. The intention of creating summaries was to capture the essence of the participants’ statements and behaviors. 41 The summaries then were reviewed by the team and an auditor. Finally, cross-case analysis was conducted by identifying categories within domains and examining their frequency across all cases. The process of developing core categories involved conceptualizing and organizing the main themes within a domain. Core categories for each domain and cross-case examination were recorded separately in Excel spreadsheets by individual researchers and reviewed by the team. The number of categories per domain ranges from seven in “Practices in processing images” to 13 in “Role of images.” Appendix C provides an example of the core categories identified for the “Role of images” domain.

Following the updated version of CQR, the team used four types of categories in cross-case analysis, including the following:

• General: apply to all cases;
• Typical: apply to at least half of the cases;
• Variant: apply to at least 3 but less than half;
• Rare: apply to 1–3 cases. 42

Analyzing data by categories is a final step in data analysis and allows for identifying patterns and representativeness of themes across all participants. The use of Rare category in this study represents a slight departure from the recommendations of the CQR original authors because of the number of participants, the nature of the study, and additional sources of data. In the updated version of CQR, Hill et al. recommend using the forth category “Rare” for studies involving more than 15 participants. 43 This study was conducted with 15 participants but in a different discipline than psychology, and, unlike most CQR studies, it included rich documentary evidence. In addition to interview data, this study examined students’ papers and presentations in cross-case analysis. The team members decided to report the Rare cases to provide differentiation among categories and to demonstrate student behavior from both ends of the spectrum. The Rare categories captured instances of exceptional literacy practices as well as cases of carelessness. For example, in the domain “Image selection and evaluation,” the categories “Considers source information” and “Ignores source information” were identified as rare but were both important to interpreting student information practices.

In addition, the Rare category allowed the team members to address the issue of extreme cases that stood out and could potentially lead to some bias in interpretation. During the initial interviews and team meetings, students’ misuse of images was emerging as a striking theme. However, upon analyzing the category across cases, we found out that this behavior was not as prevalent as we initially expected.

The results are based on the analysis of three sources of data: questionnaire responses, student papers and presentations, and interviews. The questionnaire responses indicate that participating students received limited instruction in visual literacy. One student in the sample participated in a library workshop where the selection of visual resources was discussed. Seven students mentioned having some classroom instruction in selecting and evaluating images. Nine students reported using image processing software, such as Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, or iPhoto. Their skills in using the software were mostly self-taught.

Student Understanding of Visual Literacy

This study found no significant difference between undergraduate and graduate students in their understanding of visual literacy. Table 2 presents a selection of students’ answers in response to the question posed in the questionnaire, “What does the phrase ‘visual literacy’ mean to you?”

As the quotes in table 2 demonstrate, students emphasize one aspect of visual literacy related to “reading” images, which involves skills in understanding and interpreting. The abilities in using or producing visual content were rarely mentioned. Two students were not familiar with the concept.

Student Motivation and Image Use in Papers and Presentations

All study participants used images in PowerPoint presentations for class assignments. This finding was identified as a general category (all cases) using the CQR typology. However, use of images in papers was rare. The research team received 28 presentations (in some cases, 2–3 per student), but only four papers with images. In the questionnaire, ten students marked use of images in written assignments, but this claim was not supported by their submissions and cross-case analysis of interview data. In fact, during the interviews, only four students mentioned that they would use images in papers, usually charts and diagrams, copied from scholarly articles. Two of the submitted papers include charts, while the other two feature photographic images and artwork. One of the visually rich papers was prepared for a creative writing class by Participant K, who included personal photographs that he modified with software on his camera (see figure 1). During the interview, Participant K discussed the processes of writing and creating images that iteratively informed and transformed one another to create the final essay, “I didn’t take all these images at the same time with the intention of, like, you know, I’m going to use all these images in this one piece …the images just kind of came together with the piece as I was writing …I guess it’s, like, serendipity, maybe, like, how things line up and then how the images and the text may align.”

The use of images in papers vs. presentations emerged as an interesting dichotomy in the study. Participant E stated in the interview: “I use a lot of images in PowerPoints because I think it’s more effective in presentations, less words, more pictures, and symbols […] As far as papers, I usually don’t include images, just because that’s not what you usually do in an academic setting.” Students view papers as a more formal type of work than presentations and connect this perception to faculty expectations. They don’t feel encouraged to use images in papers because of the lack of instructions from teaching faculty, or they hold implicit or explicit expectations that use of images does not constitute academic work. A few students were concerned that their use of images in papers could be interpreted as “filler,” a way to increase paper length, and adversely impact their grade.

In contrast, students used a range of visual resources in their presentations, including photographic images, icons, symbols, charts, cartoons, and maps. When discussing their motivation to include images in presentations, they mentioned faculty or peer expectations, and in some cases talked about an unspoken and widely shared notion that PowerPoint presentations must have images. Peer expectations were particularly prevalent in group projects. The other motivating factors for including images in presentations include aesthetics and the engaging or even entertaining role of images. Students are motivated to use images to add an aesthetic quality—to make the presentations attractive; to give audiences something to look at; to keep their attention.

Image Selection and Evaluation

The finding that Google Images is a primary source of visual materials for students’ presentations does not come as a surprise. In a few cases, students used scholarly articles, news sites, library databases, digitized resources, museum websites, or followed links on Google Images to find additional images at source websites. A small group of students also included images that they created themselves. Figure 2 demonstrates an example of a slide with a picture taken by a student. Table 3 provides a summary of image sources and indicates their use across cases.

As a rule, students start their search with Google Images. The statement expressed by Participant A, “Typically, I just go straight to Google,” was echoed by many students. Participant M added, “Google’s kind of the best search engine for most everything. For—not looking for science, scholarly articles, not as much—but for images that’s usually my go-to.” Participant F, who represents a rare case in this study, selected images from museum websites not only because of their quality, but also because they are associated with reliable citation information. Students mentioned several selection criteria, with image quality and representativeness of the topic emerging as typical categories. Other criteria included emotional response to image, image size, accuracy, audience, and ease of citation.

Typically, students copy and paste images that they find on Google Images without looking at originating sites or verifying sources. Most don’t follow links, read the text surrounding the image, or check permissions. Participant B described this common behavior: “I typically don’t dig too much in…like you can click ‘visit page’ if you want in Google images to see…but usually I don’t even do that, I just take the image before checking out where it came from exactly.” In some cases, students misused images or used them outside their cultural and historical context, primarily because they did not check the source sites. Participant G, who mentioned checking originating sites, was an exception in the study. She explained: “Sometimes I’ll read the article and see what it’s about. I’m always, like, wary that I’ll, like, use an image and not know its source and it will be, like, that’s not what it was saying.”

Practices in Processing Images and Designing Presentations

Students typically acquired images by copying and pasting them into a paper or presentation. A smaller number of students downloaded images to their computer and processed them using image-editing software. The processing activities usually involved resizing or adding text. In rare cases, students copied only a portion of an image or cut parts that they found relevant. Occasionally, they altered an image’s visual content by changing its background or colors. Although those instances were rare, they point to a disturbing finding that students disregard the integrity of an image as an information resource. On the other hand, those who had previous experience creating original images or studying art tended to be more careful in their processing practices. They copied entire images and did not change their visual content. Student image processing practices had a rather temporary, fleeting character. Students rarely stored images or reused them in other projects.

Students typically started the process of designing PowerPoint presentations with a textual outline, listed bullet points or fragments of text, and added images at the end. A smaller group of students discussed balancing images and text in designing presentations, and only few saw images as central to the presentation of their ideas. A typical slide had some text and an image to one side (see figure 3). Although students appreciate the role of images in conveying information or making content more accessible, they still view images as secondary. Participant O expressed this common theme: “I see the text as more important than the pictures because that’s the main focus of my presentation and the pictures act as supplements.”

Ethical and Legal Aspects of Image Use

The lack of citations or captions for the images used in PowerPoint presentations emerged as a major theme in this study, which indicates how difficult this aspect of visual literacy is for students. Only two students in the sample provided source information for images in their presentations. One of the students majored in art history and was accustomed to it because of the standard practice in her discipline. The second student included source information because her professor required it. However, thirteen students provided no citations whatsoever for images in presentations. There was also a certain discrepancy between student perceptions and practice. Five students stated during the interviews that they provided source information, but content analysis of their presentations proved otherwise. Other students were quite open about their lack of concern for credits and copyright, like Participant A, who said, “I don’t care where it’s coming from, who took it, any of that stuff.”

Students in this study said that they did not check source websites and did not cite images in presentations primarily because there is no requirement to do so from teaching faculty. Student H commented, “It’s not really expected. I think that’s kind of what determines student behavior.” However, faculty expectations tend to be different for papers. Students would include source information for figures in papers due to faculty requirements. Other reasons for not citing images include student perceptions of classroom presentations as informal and of images as not as important as text. Student O says, “I guess that’s how I think about images, like as a supplementary role, and so I don’t think that they should—I guess internally I don’t think them valuable enough to cite.”

In some extreme cases, students even used images with clear copyright restrictions, as evidenced by Participant I: “Sometimes, the people who own it will put a watermark on it, I’ll find a picture that I can work around that and I’ll cut a section that I can use.” Participant I made a distinction between text and images, stating that he would provide a reference for quoted text but not for images in presentations. In addition, students mentioned challenges in judging image authorship and intellectual property rights online as barriers to providing source information. Two students even talked about their perception of images as objects without rights, as expressed by Participant M: “I think people have come to expect that images are public property and that they’re not, in fact, somebody’s property that requires permission.”

This study shows that, despite living in a visually rich world, students are not experts in using images and require assistance developing skills in selecting, evaluating, and interpreting visual materials for academic work. Frequent interactions with images in online environments do not automatically translate into better visual literacy skills; in some cases, it may even lead to disregard of images as information resources. The findings of this study confirm prior research that questioned the generalizations about “digital natives” as somehow inherently adept in visual literacy. 44

The use of images by participants in this study was highly influenced by peer and faculty expectations, as specified in course syllabi and assignment instructions. Visual content was shown to be present in the classroom, but almost exclusively in PowerPoint presentations. For papers, students followed faculty’s instructions and preference for textual representation. Benjamin Harris’ apt description from more than a decade ago, “the default one-inch margined text in 12-point font reigns supreme in student-produced work,” 45 still rings true today. In this study, even when teaching faculty had not actively discouraged image use in papers, students intuited that it would be frowned upon. The lack of faculty encouragement, student perceptions of text as a more valuable scholarly representation, and limited instruction in how to use images in academic work support arguments that higher education has not embraced visual literacy. 46 One can further argue that higher education is slow to change and that academia rewards more traditional modes of scholarly work, leading to a continued reliance on text-heavy assignments. Although this study found limited data on a broader acceptance of images as information resources, it’s important to acknowledge that practices may differ across academic disciplines and contexts.

Furthermore, the results of this study echo findings from prior research on student image-seeking behavior. 47 Similar patterns include using Google as a primary source and limited efforts in checking originating sites. This study, however, found that students rarely considered reliability when choosing images, which contrasts with the results of Youngok Choi’s survey. 48 This discrepancy is perhaps due to students’ perceptions of credibility as an important criterion and their actual information behavior wherein they do not necessarily act on their beliefs. The use of Google is a dominant pattern in student image-seeking behavior. As Molly J. Schoen emphasizes, the answer is not to condemn students for using such sources, but to teach them to use the resources they are already using with a critical eye and attention to context. 49

The examination of the findings in light of the ACRL Visual Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education points to a gap not only in student understanding of visual literacy, but also in competencies for locating and using images in academic work. Students’ narrow understanding of visual literacy does not align with the multidimensional concept discussed in the ACRL foundational document. 50 Moreover, students’ practices in selecting, evaluating, interpreting, and using images do not meet most of the standards. Although the purpose of this study was not to measure students’ behavior against the standards, upon analyzing the results this study found limited competencies in relation to Standard Two, Three, Four, and Seven. For example, in image-seeking practices, students typically selected the first usable result they encountered; it is unlikely that they were choosing the “most appropriate image sources” (Standard Two). 51 In some cases, students used the images outside the cultural context and did not identify “information relevant to an image’s meaning” (Standard Three). 52 As discussed before, students typically did not consider reliability and did not evaluate their sources when selecting images (Standard Four). Standard Seven relates to ethical and legal aspects of image use, an area in which study participants’ incompetence was particularly apparent. While students are instructed how to reference articles and books, there is almost no expectation or direction from faculty on how to choose, use, and cite visual resources. This finding emphasizes the importance of faculty in shaping students’ behavior and implies that librarians should be working closely with faculty to promote the importance of visual literacy skills.

The findings of this study point to the importance of teaching visual literacy concepts and competencies not only through library instruction sessions, but also in the context of practical workshops focused on designing PowerPoint presentations, creating infographics, and processing images. This recommendation is based on the cross-case analysis that found the relationship between students’ prior experience in working with images and visual literacy skills; students who had experience creating images through photography or other forms of art tended to have a deeper understanding of visual literacy concepts and paid more attention to image integrity. Librarians can also work to raise the profile of visual literacy skills by partnering with faculty to create research projects that build competency in the use of visual material.

Moreover, the ACRL Framework encourages creativity and offers an opportunity to simultaneously teach visual literacy, information literacy, and transferrable design skills through information creation. 53 Visual resources offer a way to explore Information Creation as a Process. Students can conduct research with the goal of creating images or infographics for final projects. A project like this explores Knowledge Practice Eight in the “Information Creation Frame”: wherein learners will develop, in their own creation processes, an understanding that their choices impact the purposes for which the information product will be used and the message it conveys. This kind of project also lends itself to a more robust understanding of the labor included in creating digital visual content, which implicitly encourages appreciation of visual resources. 54 This serves as only one example of how librarians can use the ACRL Framework to explore ways of embedding visual literacy skills more fully into curricula.

By providing an adaptable model, the ACRL Framework allows us to approach visual literacy as a core component of information literacy rather than a separate set of competencies. As discussed in the literature, visual literacy concepts need to be integrated into information literacy instruction and embedded into core curricula. 55 The findings of this study support this position. Based on the consensual interpretation of the findings, the authors of this study believe that the best way to teach visual literacy skills is with a holistic, multifaceted approach incorporating classroom activities, workshops, and a variety of library instruction sessions as an inextricable part of information literacy. Reaching faculty requires a “train the trainer” approach, which can be accomplished by collaborating with other units on campus, such as Teaching and Learning offices, graphic design, and instructional design departments.

Study Limitations

The qualitative approach selected for this study presents limitations to interpretations and generalization of results. Inability to generalize qualitative findings to larger populations is an acknowledged limitation of qualitative research. 56 However, a qualitative study conducted in a specific context provides in-depth information on actual practices of participants and reveals patterns in information behavior that can inform practice in LIS, especially the design of visual literacy instruction. The CQR methodology adopted for this study offers an opportunity for presenting multiple perspectives and promotes in-depth analysis of findings across cases. Data analysis using the CQR approach requires a team effort and demands a considerable commitment from the researchers. The methodology, developed in the field of psychology, focuses exclusively on interview data and is challenging to use with other types of empirical evidence. Further research could examine image use behavior of faculty, particularly regarding faculty practices in image attribution in slide files, faculty engagement in providing visual literacy instruction, and the impact of faculty actively encouraging students to incorporate images in papers. In addition, research on student behavior could be extended beyond academia to explore student interaction with images in the social media environment and the impact of online behavior on academic practices.

This qualitative study aimed to explore multiple aspects of visual literacy and students’ skills in using visual resources for academic work. The findings of this study indicate that undergraduate and graduate students lack basic visual literacy skills in selecting, evaluating, and using images. This study also points out that images play a secondary role in academic culture and lack the same expectations from faculty regarding citations. Visual resources are used within the domain of informal classroom presentations but are rarely used in papers. James Elkins’ call for presence of images in university education from a decade ago has thus been fulfilled—but only to a certain extent. 57 There is a real need for intensifying the efforts in visual literacy education, especially given that, within an environment flooded with visual media, students are beginning to view images as transitory objects without authors and rights.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like thank anonymous reviewers who provided constructive and helpful suggestions for improving this article.

1. W.J. Thomas Mitchell, Picture Theory: Essays on Verbal and Visual Representation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 2–15; W.J. Thomas Mitchell, “Visual Literacy or Literary Visualcy?” in Visual literacy , ed. James Elkins (New York: Routledge, 2007), 15–16; Mitchell Stephens, The Rise of the Image, the Fall of the Word (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 11.

2. Ron Bleed, “Visual Literacy in Higher Education,” Educause Learning Initiative 1 (2005): 1–11, available online at https://library.educause.edu/~/media/files/library/2005/1/eli4001-pdf.pdf [accessed 11 July 2017]; James Elkins, “Introduction: The Concept of Visual Literacy, and Its Limitations,” in Visual literacy , ed. James Elkins (New York: Routledge, 2007), 4–8; Paul Felten, “Visual Literacy,” Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning 40, no. 6 (2008): 62–63.

3. Elkins, “Introduction: The Concept of Visual Literacy,” 4–5.

4. Denise Hattwig, Kaila Bussert, Ann Medaille, and Joanna Burgess, “Visual Literacy Standards in Higher Education: New Opportunities for Libraries and Student Learning,” portal: Libraries and the Academy 13, no. 1 (2013): 61–62.

5. Bleed, “Visual Literacy in Higher Education,” 7–10; Felten, “Visual Literacy,” 62; Benjamin R. Harris, “Visual Information Literacy via Visual Means: Three Heuristics,” Reference Services Review 34, no. 2 (2006): 213–14; Anne Morgan Spalter and Andries Van Dam, “Digital Visual Literacy,” Theory into Practice 47, no. 2 (2008): 98–101.

6. Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Visual Literacy Standards Task Force, Visual Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education (2011), available online at www.ala.org/acrl/standards/visualliteracy [accessed 22 June 2017].

7. Paul Messaris, Visual “Literacy”: Image, Mind, and Reality (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994), 3–21; B.A. Chauvin, “Visual or Media Literacy?” Journal of Visual Literacy 23, no. 2 (2003): 119–28.

8. Messaris, Visual “Literacy,” 3.

9. Maria Avgerinou and John Ericson, “A Review of the Concept of Visual Literacy,” British Journal of Educational Technology 28, no. 4 (1997): 280–91; Anne Bamford, The Visual Literacy White Paper (Sydney, Australia: Adobe Systems, 2003), 1–2.

10. David M. Considine, “Visual Literacy and Children’s Books: An Integrated Approach,” School Library Journal 33, no. 1 (1986): 38.

11. Spalter and Van Dam, “Digital Visual Literacy,” 94–95; Felten, “Visual Literacy,” 61–62; Maria D. Avgerinou, “Re-viewing Visual Literacy in the “Bain d’Images” Era,” TechTrends 53, no. 2 (2009): 29–30; Eva Brumberger, “Visual Literacy and the Digital Native: An Examination of the Millennial Learner,” Journal of Visual Literacy 30, no. 1 (2011): 21; Hattwig et al., “Visual Literacy Standards in Higher Education,” 63.

12. Spalter and Van Dam, “Digital Visual Literacy,” 94–95.

13. ACRL, Visual Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education, “Visual Literacy Defined,” para. 1.

14. Ibid.

15. Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL ), Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education (2000), available online at https://alair.ala.org/handle/11213/7668 [accessed 21 January 2018].

16. Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL ), Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education (Framework) (2016) , available online at www.ala.org/acrl/standards/ilframework [accessed 3 November 2017].

17. Felten, “Visual Literacy,” 61–62; Deandra Little, Peter Felten, and Chad Berry, “Liberal Education in a Visual World,” Liberal Education 96, no. 2 (2010): 46–49; Amanda Milbourn, “A Big Picture Approach: Using Embedded Librarianship to Proactively Address the Need for Visual Literacy Instruction in Higher Education,” Art Documentation 32, no. 2 (2013): 280–83; Molly J. Schoen, “Teaching Visual Literacy Skills in a One-Shot Session,” VRA Bulletin 41, no. 1 (2015): 2.

18. Michelle D. Ervine, “Visual Literacy in Instructional Design Programs,” Journal of Visual Literacy 35, no. 2 (2016): 104–13.

19. Barbara Blummer, “Some Visual Literacy Initiatives in Academic Institutions: A Literature Review from 1999 to the Present,” Journal of Visual Literacy 34, no. 1 (2015): 6–16.

20. Justine C. Bell, “Visual Literacy Skills of Students in College-Level Biology: Learning Outcomes Following Digital or Hand-Drawing Activities,” Canadian Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning 5, no. 1 (2012): 1–13; Michael S. Palmer, “Learning to See the Infinite: Teaching Visual Literacy in a First‐Year Seminar Course,” New Directions for Teaching and Learning , no. 141 (Spring 2015): 19–29; Tammy Ravas and Megan Stark, “Pulitzer-Prize-Winning Photographs and Visual Literacy at The University of Montana: A Case Study,” Art Documentation 31, no. 1 (2012): 34–44.

21. Joan E. Beaudoin, “Describing Images: A Case Study of Visual Literacy among Library and Information Science Students,” College & Research Libraries 77, no. 3 (2016): 379–88.

22. Harris, “Visual Information Literacy via Visual Means,” 214–19; Benjamin R. Harris, “Blurring Borders, Visualizing Connections: Aligning Information and Visual Literacy Learning Outcomes,” Reference Services Review 38, 4 (2010): 524–26.

23. Schoen, “Teaching Visual Literacy Skills,” 5–10.

24. Bell, “Visual Literacy Skills of Students in College-Level Biology,” 6–8; Beaudoin, “Describing Images,” 387–88; Palmer, “Learning to See the Infinite,” 28.

25. Marc Prensky, “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants Part 1,” On the Horizon 9, no. 5 (2001): 1–6.

26. Brumberger, “Visual Literacy and the Digital Native,” 45.

27. Richard Emanuel and Siu Challons-Lipton, “Visual Literacy and the Digital Native: Another Look,” Journal of Visual Literacy 32, no. 1 (2013): 7–26.

28. Krystyna K. Matusiak, “Studying Information Behavior of Image Users: An Overview of Research Methodology in LIS Literature, 2004–2015,” Library & Information Science Research 39, no. 1 (2017): 58.

29. Laurie M. Bridges and Tiah Edmunson-Morton, “Image-Seeking Preferences Among Undergraduate Novice Researchers,” Evidence Based Library and Information Practice 6, no. 1 (2011): 27–28; JungWon Yoon, “Searching Images in Daily Life,” Library & Information Science Research 33, no. 4 (2011): 271; Youngok Choi, “Effects of Contextual Factors on Image Searching on the Web,” Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 61, no. 10 (2010): 7–9.

30. Choi, “Effects of Contextual Factors on Image Searching on the Web,” 7.

31. Ibid., 9.

32. David Green, Using Digital Images in Teaching and Learning: Perspectives from Liberal Arts Institutions (Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT: National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education, 2006): 11–27; Henry A. Pisciotta et al., “Penn State’s Visual Image User Study,” portal: Libraries and the Academy 5, no. 1 (2005): 33–58; Roger C. Schonfeld, The Visual Resources Environment At Liberal Arts Colleges (Ithaka S+R, 2006), 2–8, doi:10.18665/sr.22338 .

33. Green, Using Digital Images in Teaching and Learning, 10.

34. Mary Kandiuk and Aaron Lupton, “Digital Images in Teaching and Learning at York University: Are the Libraries Meeting the Needs of Faculty Members in Fine Arts?” Evidence Based Library and Information Practice 7, no. 2 (2012): 20–21.

35. Stacy G. Ulbig, “A Picture Is Worth What? Using Visual Images to Enhance Classroom Engagement,” International Journal of Instructional Media 37, no. 2 (2010): 185–201; Krystyna K. Matusiak, “Image and Multimedia Resources in an Academic Environment: A Qualitative Study of Students’ Experiences and Literacy Practices,” Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 64, no. 8 (2013): 1582–86.

36. Clara E. Hill, Barbara J. Thompson, and Elizabeth Nutt Williams, “A Guide to Conducting Consensual Qualitative Research,” Counseling Psychologist 25, no. 4 (1997): 517–72.

37. Clara E. Hill et al., “Consensual Qualitative Research: An Update,” Journal of Counseling Psychology 52, no. 2 (2005): 201–06; Clara E. Hill, “Introduction to Consensual Qualitative Research,” in Consensual Qualitative Research: A Practical Resource for Investigating Social Science Phenomena , ed. Clara E. Hill (Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2012), 7–12.

38. Sejal M. Barden and Craig S. Cashwell, “International Immersion in Counselor Education: A Consensual Qualitative Research Investigation.” Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development 42, no. 1 (2014): 42–60; Trisha L. Raque-Bogdan et al., “The Work Life and Career Development of Young Breast Cancer Survivors,” Journal of Counseling Psychology 62, no. 4 (2015): 655–69.

39. Clara E. Hill et al., “Consensual Qualitative Research,” 207–10; Hill, “Introduction to Consensual Qualitative Research,” 13.

40. Barbara J. Thompson, Barbara L. Vivino, and Clara E. Hill, “Coding the Data: Domains and Core Ideas,” in Consensual Qualitative Research: A Practical Resource for Investigating Social Science Phenomena , ed. Clara E. Hill (Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2012), 103–06.

41. Ibid., 111.

42. Nicholas Ladany, Barbara J. Thompson, and Clara E. Hill, “Cross-analysis,” in Consensual Qualitative Research: A Practical Resource for Investigating Social Science Phenomena , ed. Clara E. Hill (Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2012), 124.

43. Ibid., 124.

44. Brumberger, “Visual Literacy and the Digital Native,” 20; Emanuel and Challons-Lipton, “Visual Literacy and the Digital Native,” 25.

45. Harris, “Visual Information Literacy via Visual Means,” 214.

46. Elkins, “Introduction: The Concept of Visual Literacy,” 8; Ervine, “Visual Literacy in Instructional Design Programs,” 111; Harris, “Visual Information Literacy via Visual Means,” 214.

47. Choi, “Effects of Contextual Factors on Image Searching on the Web,” 7.

48. Ibid.

49. Schoen, “Teaching Visual Literacy Skills,” 10.

50. ACRL, Visual Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education.

51. Ibid.

52. Ibid.

53. ACRL, Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education .

54. Ibid.

55. Felten, “Visual Literacy,” 61–62; Deandra Little, Peter Felten, and Chad Berry, “Liberal Education in a Visual World,” Liberal Education 96, no. 2 (2010): 46–49; Milbourn, “A Big Picture Approach,” 280–83.

56. Michael Quinn Patton, Qualitative Evaluation and Research Methods , 4th ed. (Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, 2015), 710–13.

57. Elkins, “Introduction: The Concept of Visual Literacy,” 8.

* Krystyna K. Matusiak is an Associate Professor in the Research Methods and Information Science Department of the Morgridge College of Education at the University of Denver, email: [email protected] ; Chelsea Heinbach is a Teaching & Learning Librarian in the Educational Initiatives Department of Lied Library at the University of Nevada, email: [email protected] ; Anna Harper is Fine and Performing Arts Librarian in the University Library at California State University Sacramento, email: [email protected] ; Michael Bovee is Technical Services Librarian in Reed Library at Fort Lewis College, email: [email protected] . ©2019 Krystyna K. Matusiak, Chelsea Heinbach, Anna Harper, and Michael Bovee, Attribution-NonCommercial ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ ) CC BY-NC.

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Visual Literacy Is Critical for 21st Century Learners

NCTE 01.13.21 Multimodal Literacies

This post was written by NCTE member Dianna Minor.

One of the major tasks I’ve embarked upon since my initial National Board Certification (NBCT) is collaborating with colleagues to integrate visual literacy in secondary classrooms, giving students opportunities to look beyond the printed text.

Visual literacy builds stronger readers, readers who are able to think about texts in numerous ways through a different lens, an important skill for critical readers and thinkers in the 21st century. Students skilled in visual literacy are able to create meaning from images, which in turn improves their writing proficiency and critical thinking skills. By integrating visual literacy into classrooms, we help students learn to collaborate and to discuss a wide range of ideas while expressing their own.

It is critical for students to be able to evaluate content/texts presented in diverse formats and media, a skill that can require much teacher modeling and independent practice. As students gain experience in interpreting works of art, infographics, film, videos, political cartoons, photographs, maps, advertisements, slide show presentations, and so on, they learn that they can use their imagination to see and think between and beyond the lines to draw inferences and conclusions. Visual literacy encourages student reflection, analysis, and evaluative thinking skills.

I’ve used visual literacy lessons to give students practice in analyzing tone, mood, and details in works of art. For example, in poetry lessons, I’ve modeled the Visual Thinking Strategy (VTS) when looking at photographs from the civil rights era. With this strategy, students focus on key questions:

• What’s going on in the photograph/art piece? (making inferences)
• What evidence do you see to support this? (looking for supporting evidence)
• What more can we find? (analyzing details to see how they connect as a whole)

Through these questions, students have discovered themes and identified main ideas, helping them understand the stories from the photographs.

In addition to photographs, I’ve integrated more works of art and paintings into my classroom so students have opportunities to analyze how two texts are similar and different and to discuss and compare the different approaches the author or artist takes.

Integrating visual literacy also gives quiet or reluctant students more opportunities to feel comfortable in the classroom; these lessons tend to be in small groups, allowing students to practice their own analysis through viewing, listening, and contributing.

With short stories and major literary works (essays, novels, longer pieces of text), teachers can pair texts with photographs and then ask students to draw evidence from informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research. One useful tool for analyzing visual texts is the OPTIC strategy, in which the O stands for an overview , a general statement describing the photograph; P stands for important parts of the image, and could include inferences about what they contribute; T stands for how the title (or text) contributes to the meaning; I stands for interrelationships in the image—how the elements work together to create mood or meaning; C stands for conclusion , a statement that interprets the overall meaning. Using this framework, students can discuss the idea of claims and use detail and imagery to identify the central message of the photograph.

Visual literacy is invaluable to reader development in so many ways. It allows gradual development of the student reader’s understanding, slowing down the analysis process by making it more deliberate, and enabling students to build their own interpretation, to rely on their own powers of critical thinking.

Dianna Minor is an educator, writer, and consultant. Her professional experience includes literacy and curriculum and instruction. Twitter: @diminor1

It is the policy of NCTE in all publications, including the Literacy & NCTE blog, to provide a forum for the open discussion of ideas concerning the content and the teaching of English and the language arts. Publicity accorded to any particular point of view does not imply endorsement by the Executive Committee, the Board of Directors, the staff, or the membership at large, except in announcements of policy, where such endorsement is clearly specified.

Visual Literacy

Why visual literacy is important.

• How to interpret an image
• How to define image need
• How to find images
• How to evaluate images and their sources
• How to date old photographs
• An introduction to slow looking
• Use images effectively, ethically, and correctly
• How to create images
• How to share your images
• Further reading
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Dana Statton Thompson (2019) Teaching students to critically read digital images: a visual literacy approach using the DIG method, Journal of Visual Literacy, 38:1-2, 110-119, DOI: 10.1080/1051144X.2018.1564604

What is visual literacy?

V isual Literacy is being aware of how we experience images, video, and other forms of multimedia. Images must be evaluated in a similar way to written texts.  Like text, images can be used accurately, deliberately, misleadingly or carelessly. Some images, like texts, can be interpreted in different, sometimes contradictory, ways.

Visual literacy is not just restricted to art history and film studies it is important for everyone. Maps can show geographical information much better than a verbal or textual description. Charts and graphs can clearly describe the growth or decline of population, financial performance of a company, etc. Cartoons can sum up a viewpoint or opinion.

Images are everywhere in increasingly vast quantities. They entertain, influence, manipulate and persuade us. Some images are used to fill an otherwise blank space.  It is easy to view images passively without thinking about them  or  even just not notice them. 

It is important that you reflect critically on any images that you come across in your research and even when casually searching the internet and other visual media just as you would to written text. This guide offers you the skills to question  why the author of a document has chosen particular images and why you react to them in the way you do.

A definition of visual literacy

"Visual literacy is a set of abilities that enables an individual to effectively find, interpret, evaluate, use, and create images and visual media. Visual literacy skills equip a learner to understand and analyze the contextual, cultural, ethical, aesthetic, intellectual, and technical components involved in the production and use of visual materials. A visually literate individual is both a critical consumer of visual media and a competent contributor to a body of shared knowledge and culture."

- The Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) Visual Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education

Are You vsually literate?

A visually literate person is someone who can:

• Determine the nature and extent of the visual materials needed

• Find and access needed images and visual media effectively and efficiently

• Interpret and analyze the meanings of images and visual media

• Evaluate images and their sources

• Use images and visual media effectively

• Design and create meaningful images and visual media

• Understand many of the ethical, legal, social, and economic issues surrounding the creation and use of images and visual media, and access and use visual materials ethically.

Use the menu on the right to look at the different topics and see how aware you are and how you can improve your visual literacy. 

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• Introduction to Visual Literacy

Learning and Visual Literacy

Introduction to visual literacy: learning and visual literacy, created by health science librarians.

Introduction

Learning and Visual Literacy Introduction

Developing visual literacy.

• Visual Brainstorming
• Section Overview
• Visual Design
• Digital Images and Photography
• Digital Video and Storytelling

Learning and literacy are closely related. Literacy can be defined as proficiency, or “the ability to comprehend or articulate”  (Apkon, page 37).  According to Stephen Apkon, “true literacy is always a two-way transaction. We don’t just consume; we produce. We don’t just read; we write.” (p. 39).

This definition is consistent with a constructionist view of learning, according to which learning is an active process in which learners construct new understandings and knowledge by integrating new experiences into their existing knowledge structures. 

Visual literacy and reading/writing literacy

Reading and writing continue to be vitally important to education. Education professor and researcher MaryAnne Wolf writes that the “emphases of digital media on efficient, massive information processing… and seemingly endless forms of digitally based entertainment…can be less suited for the slower, more time-consuming cognitive processes that are vital for contemplative life and that are at the heart of what we call deep reading.”  "Deep reading" is an important antidote to unreflective consumption of images and media. Deep reading requires active participation and therefore promotes active learning and deeper understanding.

But this doesn't diminish the importance of visual and media literacies. Just as "deep reading" engages us in reflecting on our reading experience, visual literacy involves reflecting on our media experiences. Because visual media can be so easily consumed passively, visual literacy is critically important.  Visual literacy involves awareness of and reflection on what we experience when we view images, video, and other forms of multimedia. 

The possibility of integrating visual literacy skills with reading and writing literacies has huge implications for learning as well as for teaching. Wolf advocates “parallel development of multiple literacies” that can help students ask and think about “deeper questions and new, never-before-articulated thoughts.”  Rather than competing with each other, multiple literacies complement and reinforce each other– and give a person greater facility in processing different kinds of information – thus facilitating effective learning in a variety of situations.

Visual thinking and the big picture

In almost all people, visual and verbal literacies operate together.*  Visual thinking contributes the ability to see the big picture –  to provide context and an understanding of relationships. This is why visual thinking is important to creativity.

According to Ann Marie Seward Barry, visual thinking "has its own holistic logic... which operates on every level of awareness from subliminal perceptual process to holistic creative thinking, which allows us to consciously combine different element in new and surprising ways."

Visual literacy and teaching

Evidence from neuroscience indicates that presenting information in multiple ways helps learners because it engages multiple channels for processing the information presented. According to neuroscientist Louis Cozolino, “learning is enhanced through multichannel processing… because we have an amazing capacity for visual memory, written or spoken information paired with visual  information results in better recall.” (Cozolino, 2013)  Of course, the effectiveness of visual materials presented depends on their design. 

* For examples of cases in which brain damage has disrupted the connection between these kinds of thinking, see Sacks (1998)

Developing visual literacy 

The following diagram represents one way of looking at developing visual literacy, divided into three aspects. This is obviously a very simplistic interpretation of an extremely complex process, intended to provide a useful approach to looking at complex issues. It is not a scientific description of what happens in the brain.

< The three activities shown above roughly correspond to the sequence of input-processing-output. Of course, all these activities go on all the time, but representing them sequentially may make it easier to think about. 

Visual message awareness:  Just being aware of visual messages starts a process of reflecting on our visual experiences which develops visual literacy. See "About Visual Message Awareness" below. 

Visual thinking:  Visual thinking includes working with images in our imagination as well as on paper or on the computer. Visual brainstorming techniques, such as clustering and mind mapping, are examples of ways to think visually. Visual brainstorming is described in the next section. 

Creating and communicating: Developing skills in design and visual media tools help us communicate visually. This important aspect of visual literacy is described in Section 4 of this guide.     Learning to use tools to create visual media not only helps us express our ideas creatively, it also helps us understand the visual media we see as consumers and how it was created. That is the reason the above diagram shows a loop going back from “Creating and Communicating” to “Visual Message Awareness.”     

About Visual Message Awareness

Visual message awareness includes the ability to pay attention to what we experience, and to critically reflect on it.  

Attention is important to visual literacy.  Authors like artist Frederick Frank in The Zen of Seeing and photographer Freeman Patterson in Photography and the Art of Seeing point out that attention (or mindfulness) is key to their approaches to art (and living). Just noticing visual forms that we see each day can make us more visually literate. Attention is especially important in photography, which aims to "capture the moment."

In the realm of media messages, paying attention to what is happening as it happens is a necessary prerequisite to critically reflecting on it.

Critical reflection is important for understanding the ways in which visual messages are trying to persuade us. If we don't reflect on what we are seeing, we are likely to be influenced and manipulated by stories without being aware of it. According to neuroscientist Louis Cozolino, stories “are powerful organizing forces that serve to perpetuate both healthy and unhealthy forms of self-identity” (Cozolinas, p. 167).

Analysis of the ways in which consumers can be manipulated through media messages is beyond the scope of this guide. For more information see Ewen (2008) and Barry (1997).

Guide Contents

Learning and visual literacy

Visual brainstorming

Creating with visual media    –  Visual design    –  Images and photography    –  Video and storytelling

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Visual Literacy, introduction

This book is an edited volume, with contributions by Barbara Stafford, W.J.T. Mitchell, Jon Simons, Jonathan Crary, and others. It was the product of a combined conference and exhibition of the same name, which has generated another book, "Visual Practices Across the University" (which is uploaded, in its entirety, on this site) and "Visual Cultures" (not yet published). "Visual Literacy" is intended to survey the meanings of the expression, and related notions such as visual competence. Some contributors are interested in the theory of literacy when it pertains to the visual; others in its rhetoric; and others in its implementation at college and secondary school level. The book is intended to serve as a resource for conversations about what comprises minimal or desirable visual ability, competence, or literacy in a university or secondary-school setting. This text is the introduction, the only part of the book I wrote--and so the only part I will upload here.

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Denise R Newfield

Malka Ben Peshat

VLE, a graduate program operating since 2008, was designed to address the critical issues related to the multi-disciplinary field of Visual Literacy, in regard to critical theories concerning the following domains: Visual Culture, Visual Communication, Visual Arts and Visualization. The VLE program is based on the premises that a web of connections tying those domains to each other depend on Visual Literacy capacities. These very premises that have served building the program pointed out to their strong ties with the vast and multidisciplinary field of Education, in particular with the educational approach and movement, such as Critical Pedagogy. This movement is based on social change and empowerment of all involved in educational activities and systems. In this article the VLE graduate program was evaluated from two main aspects: its contribution to students and graduates and to a larger circle of connected communities. This evaluation is based on a comparative study of three kinds of research activities: Results of an external three years evaluation conducted by the College Research Unit in a combined method (qualitative and quantitative); Results of focus group method conducted twice, in 2010 and 2013; Content analyses of thirty final research projects reported by students. The comparative analysis of these results was based on the extracted categories concerning contribution to theoretical knowledge, developing of visual abilities, teaching improvement, personal empowerment, professional promotion and diffusion of visual literacy’s abilities, or capacities. Keywords: Critical pedagogy, graduate studies, visual culture, visual education, visual literacy

Jamie Steane

Journal of Visual Literacy

Maria D . Avgerinou , Rune Pettersson

The Reading Teacher

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Visual Literacy

What is visual literacy.

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“Visual Literacy” might be an unfamiliar term to you, but it bares similar meanings to  “learn about the visuals .”

In the library world, visual literacy is a set of abilities that enables an individual to effectively find , interpret , evaluate , use , and create images and visual media.

According to the American Library Association, Visual literacy is an interdisciplinary skill set that must be taught and learned across higher education – in the arts, humanities, science, technology, business, and more. College students are expected to use and critique visual materials in their academic work and to produce visual materials that effectively communicate their research and scholarly activities. Visual literacy competence is essential for successful participation in this media-rich academic environment. 

The Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) adds to this definition in stating that a visually literate individual is able to:

• Determine the nature and extent of the visual materials needed
• Find and access needed images and visual media effectively and efficiently
• Interpret and analyze the meanings of images and visual media
• Evaluate images and their sources
• Use images and visual media effectively
• Design and create meaningful images and visual media
• Understand many of the ethical, legal, social, and economic issues surrounding the creation and use of images and visual media, and access and use visual materials ethically. (“ACRL Visual Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education”)
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Teaching Visual Literacy: Pedagogy, Design and Implementation, Tools, and Techniques

• First Online: 01 January 2015

Cite this chapter

• Elizabeth K. Anderson 3 ,
• Rhonda S. Robinson 4 &
• Kristin Brynteson 4  

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Visual literacy is emerging as a key concept in educational standards in the twenty-first century; for example, the Association of College and Research Libraries developed higher education competency standards for visual literacy in 2011. Several of the Common Core State Standards emphasize visual literacy in terms of navigating, decoding, and encoding visual information. The purpose of this report is to discuss student experiences in a graduate-level visual literacy course that was revised to include a themed blended approach, reflective writing, a portfolio, collaborative projects, interactive online discussions, and several low-stakes production assignments. Due to an institutional shift towards blended course formats, key program courses were redesigned to fit the needs of commuting students. Another factor underlying the course redesign was the need to address the proliferation of participatory digital media in the twenty-first century. The course was enhanced in 2009 with a blended format, redesigned based on student feedback and piloted in 2011, and revised and piloted once more in 2012. Data were collected through pre- and post-course student surveys, student interviews, and student reflections. The findings of our case study indicate that engagement and active learning occurred and that these characteristics might be transferrable across many learning contexts. Course design concepts and examples of activities reviewed in this report are appropriate for higher education audiences and of interest to K–12 educators.

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Anderson, E., Robinson, R., Brynteson, K. (2015). Teaching Visual Literacy: Pedagogy, Design and Implementation, Tools, and Techniques. In: Baylen, D., D'Alba, A. (eds) Essentials of Teaching and Integrating Visual and Media Literacy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05837-5_14

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What is Visual Literacy?

The basic definition of visual literacy is the ability to read, write and create visual images. It is a concept that relates to art and design but it also has much wider applications. Visual literacy is about language, communication and interaction. Visual media is a linguistic tool with which we communicate, exchange ideas and navigate our complex world.

The term “visual literacy” was defined in 1969 by John Debes, the founder of the International Visual Literacy Association, as:

“Visual Literacy refers to a group of vision-competencies a human being can develop by seeing and at the same time having and integrating other sensory experiences. The development of these competencies is fundamental to normal human learning. When developed, they enable a visually literate person to discriminate and interpret the visible actions, objects, symbols, natural or man-made, that he encounters in his environment. Through the creative use of these competencies, he is able to communicate with others. Through the appreciative use of these competencies, he is able to comprehend and enjoy the masterworks of visual communication.” – John Debes, 1969

Since this definition by Debes, researchers and practitioners have re-defined ever more complex definitions that reflect the breadth of its applications. The term itself takes on different meanings in different contexts and you will therefore encounter new ideas in education, science, graphic design, art, technology, philosophy and so on.

Visual literacy is, by nature, an organic concept that requires us to continually define and re-define its meaning as our world changes. Digital technology has greatly impacted our understanding of visual literacy as we now see children growing up with tablets and computers and what appears to be highly developed visual literacy instincts. But are they instincts, or are they picking up this new ‘language’ as a result of their interactions with digital technologies? These, and many more, are the questions that we ask and explore on this website. We welcome you to put forth your own definition of visual literacy so that our collective knowledge can continue to inform progress in this important field.

Kristen Harrison, Founding Editor

• Corpus ID: 194040070

Visual ""literacy"": Image, Mind, And Reality

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Visual literacy and manipulation.

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From Visual Literacy to Critical Visual Literacy: An Analysis of Educational Materials.

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How to Incorporate Visual Literacy in Your Instruction

When students make observations, they learn how to describe what they see, interpret the images, and then make deeper connections.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, can you imagine all of the stories that one picture tells? When students are able to fully “read” images, they can understand beyond the text and delve deeply into the author’s message. Imagine close reading, but instead of text, they’re examining images. Visual literacy encompasses the ability to effectively find, interpret, evaluate, use, and create images and visual media.

The beauty of visual literacy is that it opens the door for other language arts standards to be woven into your lessons, and it accommodates all learners from pre-K to fifth grade.

Facilitating Connections to Learning With Visual Literacy

As a young child, I developed my visual literacy skills early on. When I was in grade school, my eyes gravitated to posters in the classroom. I loved seeing posters on the walls full of color, pictures, or drawings. I would often try to sketch what I saw on the posters and add them to my worksheets. It was a way for me to make deeper connections to my learning. If illustrations had an effect on my learning as a kid, then they could also have a significant impact on my students when incorporated as part of daily instruction.

Our fourth-grade classes started incorporating visual literacy into our instruction two years ago. As part of our character unit, we front-loaded visual literacy into the curriculum by using wordless texts to help students make observations in the illustrations. Students examined story elements such as setting and made inferences about the main characters. The purpose was to have them practice making observations before introducing the mentor text.

Addressing 6 Components of Visual Literacy

When teaching visual literacy, have students look out for these six elements identified by educator Melanie Rick as they make observations in illustrations:

1. Facial expressions:  Ask students to look at the characters’ face, eyes, mouth, and eyebrows and identify what mood or feeling the characters are expressing. You can start by showing students pictures of different facial expressions or have the students act them out. When I did this with my students, I introduced them to vocabulary words such as scowl , furrowed , and brooding .

2. Focal point:  Ask students, “Where is the center of activity or attention? Where are the character’s eyes looking? As the reader, where are your eyes going first and then resting?” Illustrators often play with scale and proportion to draw attention to a certain part of the image for a specific reason. Differences in scale can show power and authority, or submissiveness and vulnerability.

3. Gestures:  Encourage students to examine the movement or position of the character’s body and how it conveys emotion. Are the characters standing or sitting? What’s the action or pose of the character’s body? Students can make observations about the characters’ hands, arms, shoulders, torso, and feet. Gestures can show a character’s personality or emotional state at different points in the story.

4. Clothing:  Ask students if the clothes that characters are wearing give clues to their traits or their role in the story. Are they in uniform? Students can think about what clothing might tell them about the characters’ daily life or job. Students can also see if there are connections between the clothing and the setting.

5. Setting: Have students identify where the story is taking place. What’s in the background of the image or illustration? Is the illustration showing a particular time of day or season? They can look for things that may identify a specific region, continent, or country. The time and place in which a story occurs will affect the plot, so any clues that students can get from the illustrations will help them better understand the content as readers.

6. Objects: Objects are the other things that enhance the illustrations and give clues to understanding various story elements such as character traits and motivation, setting, problem, and solution. In addition to looking at the object, look at the color, size, and quantity. An object could be something that the character is holding or something else within the picture. Perhaps it’s a suitcase in the character’s hand that tells us they’re going on a trip or a bicycle that a little girl is riding to school that tells you she lives close by.

Offering Books That Focus on Visual Literacy 

Mark Ludy’s wordless picture book The Flower Man helps in teaching the six elements because the illustrations are so detailed. The main character, the Flower Man, walks through a dark and dreary town, buys an abandoned shack, and fixes it up. He plants a garden and passes out flowers, and everything he touches turns from black-and-white to color. This book enables students to practice essential observation skills and give different interpretations of why things are happening.

“Did you know the characters change in the story?” my student said excitedly. Although I’ve looked at the book about a hundred times already, I replied, “Tell me more,” eager to learn what he noticed.

“Well, in the beginning, the pictures were gray and dark. In the window, the couple was arguing. Later in the story, the color changes, and now they are hugging each other.” 

“Why do you think that is?” I asked. 

This exchange led more students to make guesses about the characters from what they saw in the pictures. They excitedly looked at all the different characters in the story to see if they could come up with a backstory of their lives. Thinking about the possibilities also encouraged them to think about the author’s message.

In a summer school class, I had my students write the text for the wordless picture book You Can’t Take a Balloon Into the Metropolitan Museum , by Jacqueline Preiss Weitzman and illustrated by Robin Glasser. The students enjoyed hunting through the illustrations to look for clues that could help them tell the story. They looked at ways to write their story by describing what was happening in the pictures using the six visual literacy elements, and they also explored different ways the story could be told if they wrote it from a particular character’s perspective.

Visual literacy can be used to help students decode text in a story. Pictures and images give readers clues and can help them sound out unfamiliar words. A book walk is a great way to incorporate visual literacy into your instruction. Before reading a book, you can show students the cover and have them make predictions based on the illustration.

As you turn the pages, you can ask open-ended questions about the illustrations and have the students provide you with clues from the pictures to support their answers. Visual literacy is also a great way to get our youngest learners in pre-K familiar with narrative writing by looking at detailed pictures and having them talk about the characters and the setting. 

When students make observations, they learn how to describe what they see, interpret the images, and then make deeper connections. They tap into their critical-thinking skills to help make sense of what they see. They may observe things that others might have overlooked.

Seeing all the little clues, and then sharing what they see and why they think it’s happening, makes visual literacy exciting for students. It unlocks all facets of literacy and allows learners to gain deeper understanding and a different perspective of the story that goes beyond information that just comes from text.

Experience the Joy of Learning

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Visual Literacy

Visual literacy has been as the ability to understand, interpret and evaluate visual messages. It’s the idea that pictures can be read and the meaning can be communicated through a process of reading. Visual literacy is about analyzing and creating messages. Those who create visual images (artists, photographers etc.) do so with a purpose in mind, using certain techniques.

Now, we know that today we live in a media saturated age. We’re taking images all the time and we need to broaden what it means to be literate to read images rather than text as image. Most of the information is communicated visually through images. Whether they are images in a text or a text book, news photos in the morning’s newspaper or a digitally altered photo of a fashion model on the cover of a magazine, images have become a major part of our world. So it’s more than reading and writing, it’s reading and understanding the visual world. 

Everything we see is an image. There really isn’t a difference between text and image because a text is an image and an image is a text. So we have to learn how to read images through the process of vision. Little children, were told, from the first day they have on the planet up to the age of five, take more information than at any other time in their life. They’re truly sentient being, taking in information with all their human senses all the time.

Art is a language. It’s a form of communication. So to be visually literate, you’ve got to know the alphabet, the vocabulary and the grammar of seeing.  Art can be created in any way, using any material the artist makes shape, form or an image. Artist is every person who creates art. The artwork, itself describes the artist. By seeing, touching the artwork we can spot the soul of the artist poured into the artwork while creating it. Seeing the colors we can feel the emotions of the artist. Art makes us see the world through another person’s perspective. Every art piece has a meaning behind it, but it doesn’t mean that everyone will see and feel that certain meaning. We all can lay eyes on a same artwork and still have wildly different reactions to it. We may overlook the meaning or read the message that the artist is sending to us, and create our own, based on how it makes us feel. Everyone is entitled to their own preferences and feelings when it comes to art.

There is a shallow surface level of enjoyment of merely looking at a beautiful piece of art. The deeper, richer level of enjoyment only comes when we critically examine the artwork. Trying to find why the artist chose a specific color or a particular perspective. Through a number of varying elements the artist is trying to convey a meaning to the audience. Everyone reacts to art differently and has the potential to grow and learn from it. It gives us the opportunity to tell stories, record history and tap into our emotions in a way that few other things can. Art is often an outward expression of our emotions, like our happiness, sadness, temporary anger, but it can be more than that. Creating art allows us to express our thoughts, perspectives of the world, our fears, dreams and desires. Art is basically painting our personalities onto a canvas. 

People for ages have been communicating through art and as a result of that today we have many beautiful and meaningful artworks. One of them is “The Persistence of Memory” painted by Salvador Dali, and one of his most recognizable works. This painting is a relatively small painting but full of meaning. In this painting there are three melting watches present. For some people they represent how time is eternal and always flowing, some experts say the clocks represent Albert Einstein’s discovery at the time of the theory of relativity. This theory proposed the idea that time was complex and relative, that time was not fixed. It could also be that Dali is trying to show that pocket watches are outdated and no longer needed in an evolving world. The artist himself says that the melting watches are simply like that because earlier in the day he had seams some melting cheese under the sun and that’s what it looked like. This is an example how single painting can invoke different perspectives when analyzing it.