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Diploma of Higher Education in Art History and Visual Cultures - Learning outcomes

Educational aims

We aim to:
  • equip you with the knowledge and critical skills to understand the historical and contemporary importance of visual, material and spatial cultures and contexts
  • foster an awareness of the field’s relationship with professional contexts, including the arts and heritage sector, and commercial and policy contexts
  • build your confidence in the transferable skills of visual literacy, critical thinking, communication and the analysis, interpretation and presentation of evidence
  • maintain open-mindedness: establish the basis for remaining open and receptive to people, places and ideas – new things, unfamiliar arguments, cultural artefacts, sites and media.

Learning outcomes

Knowledge and understanding

When you complete your studies for this qualification, you will have knowledge and understanding of:
  • visual, material and spatial cultures of more than one geographical region, and in both the past and the present
  • some of the established concepts, values and debates of the discipline, informed by current thinking and theoretical and methodological developments and tools
  • an awareness of the field’s relationship with professional contexts, including the arts and heritage sector, and commercial and policy contexts.

Cognitive skills

On completion of this qualification you will have developed the ability to:
  • deploy appropriate techniques of analysis: the ability to break down an argument, a task or a body of evidence, and deal effectively with its component parts
  • synthesis and summarisation: effectively bringing together evidence and ideas from different sources, while identifying and presenting key elements of an argument.

Practical and/or professional skills

On completion of this qualification you will have gained skills with:
  • literacy and confidence in engaging with a range of visual, material and spatial materials and contexts
  • time management and personal initiative: work to briefs and deadlines
  • self-reflection and responsibility: to reflect on one’s own learning
  • transferable approaches and perspectives: to appreciate the transfer of learning about art history and visual culture to sectors and contexts beyond academia.

Key skills

On completion of this qualification you will be able to:
  • communicate authoratively: produce assignments containing reasoned argument and adequately weighed evidence in response to a specific question
  • improve your own performance and learning process by acting on pedagogic advice and feedback.
  • adopt some of the digital practices, tools and resources appropriate to the subject
  • maintain open-mindedness: be open and receptive to people, places and ideas – new things, unfamiliar arguments, cultural artefacts, sites and media.

Teaching, learning and assessment methods

This diploma uses a range of different types of assessment. The tutor-marked assignments (TMAs) may take the form of essays, extended essays, short-answer questions or drafts of independent work, depending on the module and the level.