Video as an Innovative Method to Work on Tourism Students Research Skills

Abstract

Given the growing need for an increasingly practical teaching pedagogy, there is a need to innovate in content that helps us achieve the objectives of the different training programs. These innovations should not only respond to the application of new methodologies, but it is also necessary for the content to add value to the students. It is necessary that teachers advance at the same pace as society and understand that the expiration of content is increasingly rapid. I personally like to use videos in classes. But to do so, it has to fulfill a series of characteristics. Fundamentally, that its projection generates added value. That is, any proposal is meaningless if the recipient does not consider it useful. In this case, we will focus on how video can be a really interesting tool to grow research skills in tourism students. For this reason, it is key to understanding the students' perception of the usefulness of the videos used in class is key to identifying those resources that provide the most value and those that do not. In order to identify which ones are working better to accomplish our objective. Between 2018 and 2020, a multi-method investigation is carried out that includes survey techniques, discussion groups and interviews with students from different graduate programs in Ostetela Tourism Management School. Many authors, such as Castaño and Romero (2007) mention that the means to be used should not be perceived simply as technical elements, on the contrary they are didactic and communication elements. Along these lines, these and other authors consider that for a video to be didactic it must be produced (by the teacher) according to a series of criteria. Due to the characteristics of our students, external resources (mainly short videos speeches from key speakers) are used, and we understand that they are didactic not only if they help to understand the subject, but they can also help us to understand and simulate eventual professional situations. The provisional results show that the video is a much appreciated teaching resource. However, there is a great disparity in the perception of the students. Highlighting the video interview and the short video as resources that generate more added value. Visual content is increasingly present in classrooms. However, it is not always perceived as useful by students. The teacher must understand that not all resources generate positive impact on the student. Identifying which resources are appreciated as generators of added value is key to improving teaching quality.