Visual Approach and Design: The Appropriate Characteristics of Instructional Photos as a Tool to Support Elementary Setting in Kuwait by Ali Buhamad
This study provided a guide for appropriate characteristics of Instructional Photo to be used by teachers, trainers, coaches, instructors, and anyone else who desires to deliver knowledge and present content with visual meaning to elementary students in the state of Kuwait as a teaching style that supports teachers, facilitates clarification, and gets the learners’ attention and motivates them. This study used a basic qualitative method. The participants in this study were two teachers and two photography artists from Kuwait who had at least 10 years of experience in both fields and were selected from researcher relationships. The data collection was using electronic interviews conducted personally with each participant, using email as the instrument that collected open-ended responses. Based on participant responses, analysis showed that Instructional Photo characteristics must contain clear ideas and messages and must be interesting to the learner in terms of delivering knowledge with less explanation and effort by the teacher. The size of the instructional photo must be appropriate and must match the class size and population. The instructional photo must appear as a piece of art, which means it must have the correct colors and balance that includes hot colors for the main elements. It must have clear shapes and must be a good representation of the learner’s environment and include engaging elements that increases student interest in the content. Instructional Photo must use documented and preferably local and journalist photos. Future research could include additional qualitative techniques such as observations of the application of different types of Instructional Photo or using a quantitative approach to identify new or additional instructional photo characteristics.