Using documentaries in the classroom to develop critical thinking skills

Documentaries are enjoying unprecedented popularity and prestige, with 2019 marked as a pivotal year in what some call ‘a new golden age’ (Stone, 2023, p.1). Increased accessibility, cost-effective production, diverse content, cultural relevance, and the impact of COVID-19 have driven this surge (O’Connell, 2020; Berman, 2021). In business education, Netflix documentaries such as The Social Dilemma (2020), Downfall: The Case Against Boeing (2022), White Hot: The Rise and Fall of Abercrombie and Fitch (2022), and American Factory (2019) provide rich material for classroom discussion. These films prepare graduates for workplace challenges around ethics, transparency, inclusivity, and sustainability, while aligning with Generation Z’s visual learning preferences (Törőcsik et al., 2014; Pearson, 2018; Chalk, 2022). An often-overlooked aspect of business education is visual literacy, comparable to training in Film Studies. Preliminary findings from this research echo Hayward and Jiang (2016), indicating that documentaries, as windows to the world, can effectively foster critical thinking. This presentation shared theoretical and practical insights from a mixed-methods study (2023-2025) exploring the use of business documentaries to teach critical thinking and ethics to second-year undergraduates. In an era where fake news spreads up to 20 times faster than factual content (Dizikes, 2018) and student attendance is declining (Otte, 2024), the session aimed to inspire learning developers, academic skills advisors, and EAP professionals to integrate documentaries into their pedagogical practices.