Photomicrographs are representations of small-scale entities. It has been long argued that students can be weak in perceiving microscopic entities compared to macroscopic entities. However, only a small body of research has investigated how students utilise photomicrographs to make sense of biological phenomena. This study uses a theoretical…

The current research addresses the question of the multidimensional relationship between visual abilities, visual cognitive style, and creativity (artistic and scientific) in Singaporean students of 13-14 years old. Three hundred seventy students (100 students in Study 1 and 270 students in Study 2) from two typical secondary schools in Singapore…

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the science activities supported by the Web 2.0 tools at the 7th-grade secondary school level had an impact on the students' academic achievement, visual literacy level and spatial visualization skills. The study was designed in accordance with the nonequivalent control group design. The study…

This article provides a theoretical exploration of the connections between critical literacy and symbolic competence with some pedagogical examples from an empirical study. More specifically, we argue that critical literacy can be utilised as an approach to develop symbolic competence, and, by extension, encourage intercultural learning. Our…

Living in a world rich in digital images requires students and educators to have more visual literacy skills. The aim of this study is to examine the attitudes and visual literacy of secondary school students towards digital images on a relational basis. 188 secondary school students from two private schools in Türkiye participated in the study…

This study aims to demonstrate how interactions between a Visual Analytics (VA) application and students shape an interactive and multimodal reading practice. VA is a technology offering support with analysing vast amounts of data through visualisations. Such information-rich interactive interfaces provide possibilities for students to gain…

This article presents results from a case study which investigated how Norwegian English foreign language (EFL) learners, roughly aged 16-17, take action through redesigning a multimodal advertisement. Data was collected from a redesign task at the end of a 16-week intervention, in which three classes were introduced to critical visual literacy…

The aim of this article is to argue for the relevance of critical visual literacy (CVL) in relation to intercultural learning in ELT and present a redesign task that has been implemented with secondary school EFL learners in Norway. CVL is an approach to reading images which acknowledges that all texts are constructed, rather than neutral, and…

Writing is one of the most crucial skills for EFL students and also one of the most difficult to acquire. Many students face difficulties when it comes to writing in English. To address this challenge, this study examined whether or not combining inquiry-based learning with visual literacy could enhance EFL students' writing proficiency in four…

This article reports on a case study investigating how Norwegian upper secondary EFL learners develop multiple perspectives in facilitated dialogue about images before and after being familiarized with critical visual literacy (CVL) practices. Focus group interviews were conducted with learners before and after a 16-week intervention in which CVL…