Culturally modified pictures in printed media as an adjuvant to education in developing communities

[摘要] ENGLISH SUMMARY: Instructional pictures can significantly facilitate recall, comprehension and problem-solvingskills. This learning effect is robust and can be achieved with a variety oflearners, text, pictures, media, and learning conditions. Pictures can also distract fromthe learning process and interfere with the process of learning how to read. People canexperience difficulty in utilising pictures in picture-text learning material due tounfamiliar graphic conventions and inadequate visual and verbal literacy skills.The aim of this study was to investigate the use of pictures in picture-text learningmaterial, and in particular the value of culturally modifying pictures in such material toincrease the learning facilitation effect. The focus was on learners from developingcommunities.The study consisted of four phases: the development of a theoretical foundationthrough a literature study; an empirical component that investigated the effect ofculturally modified pictures when they are combined with printed educational text;recommendations for the design and development of picture-text learning material; andthe development of a model that explains and predicts pictorial learning facilitation.The literature study isolated twenty-two general factors that influence the learningeffect of pictures and a further ten factors applicable to learners from developingcommunities. Nineteen principles were identified that can improve pictorial materialthat is used in educational material, health education and development programmes.Culture was shown as a filter through which people receive, interpret and transmitmessages. The literature study concluded with a model that projected the picture-text-communicationprocess in education as an open system, which takes place within acultural environment.More than seven hundred subjects participated in eight experiments. The results haveshown that culturally modified pictures do not necessarily increase recall,comprehension or problem-solving abilities more than instructional pictures that are notculturally sensitised or modified to their audience. Subjects have shown that they preferpictures that are modified to their own culture. Culturally appropriate and relevantgraphic elements and conventions might not necessarily reveal measurable cognitivevalue, but are important elements in instructional picture-text learning materials that arespecifically aimed at developing and undeveloped communities.The study proposed a learner-centred theory for pictorial learning facilitation, sevenprinciples for the design and development of picture-text learning material, and an analytical model that instructional designers can use during a formative and evaluativeprocess of pictures in picture-text learning material.The main contribution of the study is a model for the explanation and prediction ofpictorial learning facilitation in picture-text learning material. This model provides themeans to use existing and anticipated data to predict the effect of picture-text learningmaterial in a specific learning situation with specific learners. It also provides a meansto explain the results of a picture-text learning occurrence.Sociocultural variables in text and pictures play an important role in picture-textlearning material when such material is aimed at learners from developingcommunities. These variables become less important when the subjects move towardsan urbanised, developed and heterogeneous community. Cultural appropriateness inpictures can affect the congeniality of picture-text learning material, but does notnecessarily contribute on a cognitive level to the value of picture-text learningmaterial. Inappropriate cultural conventions in text and pictures can, however, create abarrier in communication and thereby affect the cognitive value of such learningmaterial.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University