Festival of Audiovisual Micro-Stories in Psychology (Microfest): An Innovative Teaching Project for Students of Audiovisual Communication and Journalism

Abstract

Introductory psychology courses can be demotivating for students of social sciences degrees such as Audiovisual Communication and Journalism. Although the importance of this subject is more than justified, it is essential to design and apply innovative strategies that stimulate the teaching–learning process among first-year students, so that, through activities other than traditional lectures, their interest in behavioural sciences is aroused and they understand the importance of this subject for the future development of their professional careers. The aim of this paper is to present MICROFEST, a PIEU-UMH teaching innovation project, which has been applied as part of the continuous evaluation of students of the Fundamentals of Psychology course, taught in the first year of the Audiovisual Communication, Journalism and Joint Honours degree programmes at the Miguel Hernández University, during the 2020/21 academic year (n = 167). Through a format similar to that of a short film festival, an activity was proposed that involves the development of a series of sequential tasks aimed at creating, in pairs, a fictional audiovisual micro-story that addresses content or a theme directly related to psychology. The results obtained after the implementation of the project during the four months of the course show that the students of the three degree programmes presented a high level of performance in this part of the course, have favourable attitudes towards it and valued the initiative very positively. The indicators of satisfaction with the project were found to be good predictors of motivation towards the subject as a whole. Thus, continuance of the design and application of teaching innovation strategies that favour the teaching–learning process is recommended, and students’ satisfaction and attitudes toward it.