Primary school pre-service teachers’ perception of documentary films as educational resources

In today's society, audiovisual resources represent a fundamental form of relationship with the world and the acquisition of information and knowledge. In this sense, several scientific studies recognize the usefulness of audiovisual in general, and documentary film in particular, as an educational resource. Research indicates that cinema is not a resource widely used by teachers. This research is conceived within the framework of the initial training of teachers of Primary Education. To this end, and with the criterion of ease of access to the sample population, a questionnaire organized in five dimensions was designed. The questionnaire was administered to 213 students of Degree in Education of the University of Murcia (Spain). The results point at the documentary cinema as an educational resource known by future teachers. They also recognized the interest of documentaries for their future teaching practice. However, throughout their educational career they had not had much contact with documentary film nor were they great consumers of this type of resource. These results should make us reflect on initial teacher training in universities. Efforts should be increased to promote the acquisition of higher-level media competence that allowed teachers to analyze and select good resources for use in the classroom and that has an impact on the competence of their future primary school students.