Visual literacy research launched to assess how looking at art can impact young people’s future success

The research project is funded thanks to a generous donation from the Robson Orr Foundation. The project will be led by academics at the University of Oxford’s Department of Education, working in collaboration with the University’s Gardens Libraries and Museums Division, Government Art Collection and Art UK.

The initiative will evaluate how the ability to critically observe, analyse, question and interpret images enhance students’ potential for success in life in an increasingly image-saturated world and fast-changing workplace. The mission of the report is to provide academic research to support the establishment of visual literacy as the fourth pillar of education.

Dr Ian Thompson, Associate Professor of English Education at the University of Oxford’s Department of Education said: “Children learn from infancy to engage with visual information, but visual literacy—the ability to interpret, analyse, and create meaning from visual information—needs to be developed further.

“Our project proposes to transform our current understanding of the inter-relationships between visual literacy and related desired outcomes, how visual literacy develops differentially using different artwork modalities such as physical or digital, and how teachers can develop their own awareness and teaching skills related to their own, and their students’, visual literacy. We are very grateful to the Robson Orr Foundation for making this research possible.”

Over the three years of the study (2025–2027), the project collaborators will engage with several thousand students and hundreds of teachers in primary and secondary schools across the UK.

The work targets areas of low engagement with the creative arts, including priority education investment areas, primarily in England, but including Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The study will track student progression from primary to secondary education and propose best practice models to improve students’ visual literacy and support school professionals and collections across the UK to bring artworks into their schools.

Image Credit: Crown Copyright