Visual arts museums as learning environments in the undergraduate and postgraduate programmes of the Faculty of Education at the Complutense University of Madrid

Abstract This article addresses the need to bring the museum environment closer to the students of the Faculty of Education at the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM). The motivation for this stems from an observed lack of artistic education among these students, specifically evidenced by a lack of familiarity with the resources and learning opportunities offered by museums. To address this issue, a mixed quantitative-qualitative methodological design was chosen, with a focus on the factors that define artistic education. The research was conducted with a population cohort of UCM students ( N = 476) including future teachers, pedagogy professionals and social education professionals. The results confirm the initial hypothesis, as 82.2% of the students reported having limited knowledge of museums and their resources. Additionally, 48.3% of the participants considered their artistic education during compulsory education to have been inadequate, and of these, 78.6% stated that their teaching staff lacked the necessary knowledge. In UCM’s Laboratorio Pantono innovation project (PID), 88.6% of the students of the Faculty of Education considered museum educational resources to be relevant to their education and recognised their usefulness at all educational stages. This is because these resources facilitate the acquisition of learning related to didactics and curriculum (63.3%), recreation (92.99%), expression (63.30%), and cross-cutting issues (90.3%). Based on these findings, this study underscores the need to integrate museum resources in teacher training programmes.