Abstract:

Visual culture, as an essential part of visual literacy, is an interdisciplinary concept and is of importance for future-oriented transcultural thinking. Providing a positive educational environment that stimulates individual interests, opportunities for high qualification and effective career development of students, PhD students and young scientists studying in the professional field “3.5 Public Communications and Information Sciences” is a prerequisite for the successful implementation of visual literacy. The increase of the scientific culture of the society relates to the overcoming of technical, cultural, social, and other challenges. In 2019 a project financed by the Bulgarian National Science Fund of the Bulgarian Ministry of Education and Science started, entitled “Creation and development of educational and scientific facilities for documentary and applied photography as part of the training of students in the professional field “3.5 Public communications and information sciences” (2018-2020), Contract № KP-06-M30/3 from 13.12.2018, led by Chief Assistant Doctor Kamelia Planska-Simeonova. The main objective of the project was the research and practical activities related to the formation of the visual literacy of students who are trained in specialties in the professional field “3.5 Public Communications and Information Sciences” at ULSIT in courses dedicated to documentary and applied photography. The goal of this paper is to present the results of a survey that aims to determine the level of knowledge, mastery and application of visual literacy among students in the above-mentioned professional field. The questionnaire includes an assessment of: Awareness of the concept of "visual literacy"; Degree of mastery and application of visual literacy; Critical thinking when working with images; Self-assessment. The questionnaire was divided into 3 sections, namely – Profile of the respondent; Awareness; Self-assessment of knowledge and skills; and respondents had to answer to 24 questions. The following specific methods are used to achieve the purpose of the research and to solve the research tasks: statistical method, surveys, synthesis, graphic representation, and tabular presentation of the processed and summarized information. An analysis of the results of the conducted survey is performed and summaries and recommendations for future development are created. The results of the survey show the current state of students’ attitude and knowledge of visual literacy.

Keywords:

Visual literacy, Public Communications and Information Sciences, project, ULSIT, education, results.