Improving reference citing skills and pre-class learning activities via image assignment

Abstract

When undergraduate students start to take major courses in their departments, they probably have completed their required general writing courses. However, not many of those courses teach how to properly cite references of visual images. This would be helpful in a beginning aesthetics course, which mainly teaches concepts that describe certain visual characteristics or features. The “image assignment” was developed to (1) enhance students’ writing skills, (2) connect concepts from the book to actual visual material, (3) describe how to present images and cite sources properly, and (4) give students experience in preparing in advance for class lectures. Students were asked to read assigned chapters in the class textbook and to choose one concept related to a class lecture. They then were to find a picture of an apparel product from a magazine that best illustrated that concept. They were required to explain, based on the readings, why and how the image represented the concept. Items that were required to be included in the assignments were (1) apparel product brand and manufacturer name, magazine name, and the year of publication, (2) definition of the concept from the textbook with APA style quotation citation of the text book, (3) explanation of how the particular image represented the chosen concept with APA style in-text citation, (4) presentation of the selected image with a proper title, citing the source of the image in note format, and (5) citation of the textbook as a reference with an APA bibliographic format. Students were asked to complete five image assignments for five different lectures. Each image assignment was due before the concepts analyzed in the assignment were taught in class. Grades were assigned for both writing content and for use of proper APA citation format. To help students, an in-depth APA citation guide for the various types of citations used in the assignments was available on the course website, as well as Internet links related to APA citation and five examples of “A” level image assignments. TAs were also available for help. Image assignments were given to two basic aesthetics courses of a merchandising program, each during a different academic quarter. The image assignments were given to a relatively small class (n=55) in the first quarter and a relatively large class (n=165) in the second. Grades for the five image assignments were analyzed to determine how student performance changed. Separate from the course evaluation, student satisfaction with the image assignments was also measured. Student citation skills and class preparation skills improved during the quarter. In both classes, image assignment grades significantly improved from the first to the fifth assignment (F [df=4] =5.74, p< .001). By the end of the fifth assignment, more than 70% of students achieved a perfect score. Student satisfaction with the image assignments was relatively high (mean = 4.76 on a 5 point Likert type scale). Individual comments included “a way to exercise professionalism,” “a way to prepare for the lecture,” and “exercising expanding class knowledge to the real world.” The results of this study suggest that the image assignments fulfilled the objective of developing students’ class preparation and performance skills. By experiencing and exercising skills in reference citation including citing the sources of visual images, students were able to build professionalism in their writing abilities in relation to the apparel industry.