Concepciones del profesorado en formación sobre naturaleza de la ciencia

Abstract

En este artículo se examinan las ideas sobre naturaleza de la ciencia que presentan dos grupos de profesorado en formación: 59 futuros maestros de educación infantil y 16 futuros profesores de educación secundaria cursando un módulo que aborda cómo introducir la naturaleza de la ciencia en el aula. Las concepciones de los participantes se examinan a través de un cuestionario que incluye 22 afirmaciones, y para las que deben evaluar su veracidad utilizando una escala Likert de cinco niveles. Las respuestas al cuestionario se examinan por separado para cada grupo de profesorado. Para el análisis se agrupan los ítems del cuestionario en función de los aspectos generales sobre NDC a abordar en el contexto educativo y se examinan los porcentajes de respuestas correctas e incorrectas proporcionadas por cada grupo de participantes. Los resultados generales muestran ciertas concepciones alternativas, especialmente las relacionadas con la creatividad y la subjetividad de la ciencia en ambos grupos, considerando en porcentajes elevados que los científicos siguen siempre el mismo método paso por paso o que las nuevas hipótesis no se basan generalmente en pruebas.

In this work, we discuss the design and implementation of a modelling activity in geology to promote the conceptual change of two common ideas among students: the oversizing of the earth's crust and the origin of the magma. First, we examine the initial ideas presented by 53 10th grade students. Second, based on these ideas, we design a modelling activity to address them, and third, we examine how these ideas have been modified from the beginning to the end of the activity. The results show that while both ideas are present at the beginning of the activity, it has been useful for banishing the idea of the oversizing of the terrestrial crust, since at the end of the activity all the students recognize that it is thinner than the rest of the layers. However, the activity has not been enough to discard the idea that magma comes directly from the core of the earth, still present in the majority of students. In this paper we examine pre-service teachers’ conceptions about nature of Science (NOS), in particular the participants are two groups of 59 pre-service kindergarten teachers and 16 pre-service secondary teachers attending a course about enacting nature of science in the classroom. Participants’ conceptions are examined by means of a questionnaire containing 22 assertions to be evaluated in terms of a Likert scale composed by five levels. The responses to the questionnaire are examined separately for each group of pre-service teachers. For the analysis the items are organised according to the general aspects of NOS to be addressed in educational contexts. Then we examine the percentages of correct and incorrect responses provided by each group. The general results point to several misconceptions, especially related to creativity and subjectivity of Science in both groups, considering that scientists always follow the same method step by step, or that new hypotheses are not generally based on evidence.