The effects of visual thinking strategies on visual arts teacher candidates

The purpose of this study is to comprehensively examine the effects of visual thinking strategies on pre-service visual arts teachers' visual literacy competencies, critical thinking skills and argument writing skills. This study was designed as a mixed research model. The study group consisted of students studying in art and painting department of faculty of education, fine arts education, selected by criterion sampling method from purposeful sampling methods. The quantitative data of the study were analyzed with SPSS 27. Analysis program at .05 significance level. It was found that Visual Thinking Strategies provided a significant increase in pre-service teachers' visual literacy and critical thinking skills, and the differences between pretest and posttest results were statistically significant. There were significant improvements in visual literacy sub-dimensions and critical thinking tendencies. In addition, Visual Thinking Strategies also improved argument writing skills, and there was a significant increase in both the word count and the depth of content of the arguments. As a result, it was concluded that Visual Thinking Strategies have a positive effect on students' critical thinking, visual literacy and argumentation writing skills. Keywords: Visual Thinking Strategies, Visual Literacy, Critical Thinking, Argument Writing, Visual Arts