What can an image tell? Challenges and benefits of using visual art as a research method to voice lived experiences of students and teachers
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18533/journal.v1i1.9Keywords:
lived experinces, visual art, data analysis, phenomenology of the life-world, oral and written words, all-inclusive understandingAbstract
As humans, we have the ability to use many forms of “language” to express our self and our experiences, where visual art, an image, is one. Accordingly, experiences can be described in many different ways. In this paper we describe the challenges and benefits of using visual art as a research method to voice lived experiences of students and teachers based on life-world phenomenology. We give three examples of the analysis of visual art works, such as photographs, lino prints, and drawings made by students and teachers, as a way to express their lived experiences of different phenomena. The conclusion is that there are limits with using visual art as the sole source of empirical data. We argue that such data has to be accompanied by oral or written comments to enhance credibility and rigor. A life-world phenomenological analysis of visual art and subsequent comments emphasizes openness and humility to participants’ experiences as well as an all-inclusive understanding of a phenomenon.Downloads
Issue
Section
Article
License
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
