Adolescents’ Understanding of Human Images in Fine Art Photography: A Formative Experiment

Abstract

The article describes a formative experiment in which teaching adolescents the basics of fine art photography was used as a means of developing their understanding of human images in photography. The study was conducted with 62 students of 5th grades and 63 students of 9th—10thgrades and employed the following techniques: a modified version of a technique for studying the perception of art (by V.A. Guruzhapov, Yu.A. Poluyanov), A.V. Karpov's reflectivity questionnaire, and the technique “Who am I?” by M. Kuhn and T. McPartland (modified by T.V. Rumyantseva). The formative experiment involved a specially developed programme for teaching the basics of fine art photography consisting of 16 lessons. It is shown that these lessons promote the formation of meaning-making systems of understanding of fine art and facilitate the acquisition of the cultural norm in the perception of fine art photography in high school students. Also, the lessons proved highly effective in developing personality-related educational outcomes (such as reflectivity and self-identification) in younger adolescents. Further research perspectives and practical significance of the experiment are discussed.