Abordagem histórico-investigativa: contribuição para mudança de concepções inadequadas sobre ciências de alunos de licenciatura em química

Abstract

This research aimed to investigate the potential of the historical-investigative approach in changing inappropriate conceptions about science, discussed by Gil-Perez and Cachapuz, in licentiates in chemistry at a public university in Amazonas. In this study, an investigative workshop was elaborated, using the historical episode of the Phlogiston Theory, as a topic that fostered discussions that presented essential characteristics of science. As data collection instruments, the research relied on activity sheets, distributed at each workshop meeting, audio transcriptions of group debates and socialization and a post-workshop interview script, carried out with 5 participants of the investigative workshop. The workshop followed the steps of a theoretical investigation suggested by Carvalho, which is focused on understanding scientific work and the construction of science, and it had texts about the history of chemistry in which licentiate had to read to solve the problems proposed in the activity sheets. Altogether, participated in the workshop 8 licentiates in chemistry from the final periods. The research had an exploratory qualitative character, using methods of discursive textual analysis for exploration and triangulation of the answers collected by collection instruments. The results showed that the historical-investigative methodology applied in the research allowed the understanding of some essential characteristics of science, promoting changes in the conceptions of the licentiate about the scientific work. Such results revealed that through the exploration of the Phlogiston episode, combined with the investigative approach, there was overcoming in the elitist, individualist, linear and cumulative and non-problematic and ahistorical views. The empirical-inductivist and atheoretical views and the rigid, algorithmic and infallible view analyzed in the research showed resistance after the application of the workshop. It was also shown that group discussions were the moments of the investigative-historical approach in which there was a better understanding of the essential characteristics of scientific work. The results also revealed difficulties of the licentiates with the interpretation about some historical texts used in the workshop and in the resolution of the proposed problems. This research opens the way for the historical-investigative approach to be studied by other researchers, using other historical episodes, focusing on inadequate views not overcome by the Phlogiston episode, in addition to possibilities of application in basic education.