Abstract:

The pandemic caused by COVID-19 and the restrictions imposed around the world to limit its spread have led to significant changes in everyday life from a social and economic point of view. In particular, one of the dimensions that has suffered most from these changes is that linked to learning: schools and universities have had to adapt by relying on new learning strategies and through the use of online platforms. While on the one hand the timing dictated by urgency was a challenge in the school and academic world for both teachers and students, on the other hand they represented the necessary thrust for the search for new tools for distance learning.
The use of online platforms, very widespread among the younger population, has favored the sudden adaptation to these new forms of distance learning during the lockdown, although not without difficulty.
This work aims to highlight the strengths and criticalities of learning an action search tool that has been adapted to remote mode during lockdown: the Photovoice, participatory action research technique developed by Wang in the 1990s, which includes 4 phases: an introductory workshop, individual photographic activity, analysis of the photos of the participants through the SHOWeD method and the final event with suggestions for social action. As a visual method photovoice uses the photos taken by the participants to bring out their point of view and stimulate reflection. To this end, 130 young adults used this technique online during the period of the pandemic, using the Teams platform.
The goal of this work is to return the individual and group reflections of the participants relating to the use of the online Photovoice and its learning through an online platform, bringing out its strengths, criticalities and challenges.
The data collected were analyzed, on the basis of grounded theory, with the support of the NVivo 12 software. The results show that there are functional factors relating to learning the online Photovoice technique, such as the creation of a favorable group climate and the activation of a group decision-making process and factors to consider for its learning, such as those related to connection difficulties. In light of these results, it can be pointed out that, despite the distance and the particularly complex period, the online mode has proved to be a valid method for training and in particular for learning a participatory action research technique.

Keywords:

COVID-19, online Photovoice, Italy, learning, remote mode, group.