ABSTRACT:In some contexts, a photograph may be worth a thousand words. Previous research revealed a dialectical character of photographs: they simultaneously lack determinacy and exhibit an excess of meaning. The purpose of this study was to understand how, under this condition, high school students interpret photographs that were accompanied by different amounts and types of cotext (caption, main text). The data for this study consists of video-recorded interviews with twelve Brazilian high school students. What students perceived was in part a function of the presence of caption and main text; these texts not only described what could be seen but also taught students how to look at photographs. We conclude that high school students not only need to develop subject matter literacy but also a literacy concerning photographs to fully understand their textbooks.
INTRODUCTIONEvery image embodies a way of seeing. Even a photograph. For photographs are not, as is often assumed, a mechanical record. Every time we look at a photograph, we are aware, however slightly, of the photographer selecting that sight from an infinity of other possible sights. This is true even in the most casual family snapshot. The photographer's way of seeing is reflected in his choice of subject. . . . Yet, although every image embodies a way of seeing, our perception or appreciation of an image depends also upon our own way of seeing. (Berger, 1972, p. 10) We live in a visual world. Television, movies, and photographs are pervasive, constantly overwhelming us with images of reality in places other than where we currently are. It is therefore not surprising that photographs are also the most frequent type of inscription (representations other than language) in high school biology textbooks (Roth, Bowen, & McGinn, 1999). Existing research suggests that pictures make significant contributions to textbooks because of their potential for improving students' retention of associated text (Peeck, 1993). Yet there is very little research investigating the pedagogical role of photographs in school science: neither the psychology of cognition and learning (Schnotz, Picard, & Hron, 1993) nor science education research has paid much attention to this topic (Pozzer & Roth, 2003b). What complicates the issue is that photographs may be worth a thousand words, but on their own, they mean very little (Wittgenstein, 1958(Wittgenstein, /1994. They give rise to innumerable, different interpretations because, as our introductory quote articulates, their meaning emerges from the dialectic relation between the photographer's way of seeing and the perceptions of the reader. It is the reader's work of reading, the viewer's perception of the narrative and perceptual order of the photographic image and the surrounding text, and the meaning-making resources available to the reader that allows a specific interpretation of a photograph to arise (Bjelic, 1992). What then do high school students perceive when they look at photographic images in biology textbooks? How d...