Photovoice in Higher Education: Examining College Students Academic and Professional Lived Experiences

• In Event: Arts-Based Approaches for Expanding Methodological Terrain

Abstract

In this paper, we describe our application of photovoice, a participatory qualitative methodology termed by Caroline Wang and Mary Ann Burris (Wang & Burris, 1994; Wang & Burris, 1997). For this study, participants take photographs to document their community's strengths, which then become the focus for discussion and analysis (Sutton-Brown, 2014). Photographs from the Fall 2024 and Spring 2025 guide the interviews. Researchers reflect on the experience and the key implementation findings. While photovoice can yield unexpected and profound insights into students' lives that traditional methods might miss, participant unfamiliarity with the method can pose challenges (Latz, 2017). The significance of this work highlights photovoice’s capacity to empower participants and humanize research alongside its real-world implementation barriers and potential solutions (Wang & Burris, 1997).

Authors

• Megan Lapkoff, Clemson University

• D. Matthew Boyer, Clemson University

• Kelly Lazar, Clemson University

• Taneisha Brown, Transformative Research & Evaluation