Narrative learning in the teaching of university documentaries in Ibero-America

Narrative learning plays a central role in creative media education, enabling students to construct meaning through experiences mediated by documentary practice. This study explores documentary teaching in Ibero-America as a pedagogical space where technical, narrative and social knowledge converge within media practice in higher education. Drawing on Bruner, Egan and Goodson, the literature review highlights that narration structures cognitive experience and generates processes of critical reflection and personal transformation. A qualitative approach based on reflective thematic analysis was adopted, conducting semi-structured interviews with thirteen documentary educators from nine Ibero-American countries to identify patterns and narrative dimensions embedded in media practice pedagogy. The findings reveal two interconnected learning dimensions: the endonarrative, linked to discursive and technical skills, and the thematic narrative, oriented to the appropriation of researched and represented contents. Their articulation gives rise to convergent narrative learning, which integrates audiovisual production with the construction of social and cultural knowledge. Three transversal coding processes emerge in documentary teaching: audiovisual coding, transcoding and multicoding, which organize the narrative from research to editing. The study concludes that university documentary practice functions as a comprehensive narrative pedagogical model within media education, capable of strengthening critical competencies, fostering social empathy and consolidating students' transformative awareness.