YFIM6001 Visual Research Methods (3–4 cr)
Description
Content
Like never before, our life and daily communication has considerably changed towards more visually oriented one. Thus, any attempt at describing and analyzing, and foremost, at understanding contemporary society should incorporate visuals. This course provides students with an introduction to visual research methods, including participatory visual methods, researcher-generated data and methods of analysis of found images. We will work with photographs, advertisements, drawings, data visualisations and many more. In addition, issues related to research ethics while working with visual material will be discussed. The course will be built on learning by doing, and thus, students will practice their research skills both in collecting or generating visual material and in analysing it with their peers. Foremost, we will try to feel the joy of seeing and discovering meanings in visual research.
Completion methods
The course will consist of daily lectures introducing visual research methods, group work and exercises during class and personal homework assignments (for 3 ECTS) and optional learning diary (for 4 ECTS).
Assessment details
Active participation, learning diary. The course is evaluated with a grading scale from 0 to 5 (0=fail, 5=excellent).
Learning outcomes
• gain basic knowledge about visual research methods,
• understand differences between various visual research methods used across disciplines,
• be able to choose visual method(s) suitable for their own research topics,
• know how to conduct research using visual research methods,
• understand ethical issues in visual research,
• learn to use visual thinking when approaching visual material,
• develop their competency in visual literacy.