Appendix G. Curricular – PhotoVoice Assignment – upper-year course

Upper year course description of the assignment used in W2020

Overview

The assignment for the PSY 918 course will use PhotoVoice (Wang & Burris, 1994), a technique used in participatory research that allows individuals to document their experiences through photography. The culmination of PhotoVoice is the displayed collection of photographs, which are described, and shared with others to convey some important aspects of the individuals’ lives. As a participatory research technique in community psychology, PhotoVoice gives people who might otherwise have been ignored in research a voice to communicate important aspects of their experience.

A brief discussion of PhotoVoice is provided in chapter 12 of the textbook we will be using for the course (Applied Social Psychology, edited by Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts, 2012), on applying social psychology to the community. In addition, an orientation session will be provided for students by the Community Engaged Learning and Teaching Office in the Faculty of Arts (CELT), as well as several meetings to enable X/Ryerson students to connect with students in our partner group and to complete the project.

The Assignment

For this assignment, X/Ryerson students will be paired with students in our partner group. The task is for both groups to take photographs in response to the question “What stresses you out?” Each student will take about five photographs and then select one for display. In pairs, students will write a narrative to describe why that photo was meaningful to him or her and what the photo conveys to the viewer. With potentially 23 students in the course, each paired with a P2E student, the final exhibit could comprise 46 photos.

In addition to the photo exhibit, the X/Ryerson students will write a 6-8 page reflection paper on their experiences with PhotoVoice and their work with the partner group students. The paper will ask students to reflect on the first visit with their partner group peer, on working with their peer, as well as their observations, analysis, and critical reflection of the experience. The reflection paper will also have an advocacy and social change component to it, in keeping with the PhotoVoice methodology.

In addition to the photo exhibit, the X/Ryerson students will write an 8 to 10-page paper (not including title page and References list) on the PhotoVoice class project. The paper will include: 1) a scholarly literature review of PhotoVoice and 2) a description of your experiences with PhotoVoice and your work with the partner group. Section 2 of your paper will take the form of a personal reflection. In your reflection paper, you will reflect on your meetings with the partner group students, as well as your observations, analysis, and critical reflection of the experiences. As well, your reflection paper must include an advocacy or social change component, in keeping with the PhotoVoice methodology.  The reflection papers will allow you to reflect on what you learned from the experience and what new information you gained from the experience. As a result of this experience, what were your thoughts and reflections about the use of PhotoVoice as a research tool and as a tool for social change?

In your paper, you must include at least five (5) peer-reviewed articles relevant to your paper. While you may use the course textbook or a lecture as a starting point, you must do some outside research on PhotoVoice.  This part of your paper, which should be no more than about four pages, will take the form of a literature review of your topic from scholarly journals. As an academic literature review, you should aim to provide an integrated discussion of the material from the articles, organized around thematic points, for example, population studied, topic of the work, or PhotoVoice methodology or techniques, rather than a cursory discussion of each article as a discrete paper or study. The papers will be graded for APA style, spelling, grammar, organization, overall quality of the writing, and thoughtfulness.

Note also that some students may not be able to participate in this PhotoVoice assignment, for one reason or another, in which case an alternative assignment will need to be created, perhaps a scaled-down version of the PhotoVoice assignment.