Conceptions about the Nature of Science: the path of the students in a course on the Evolution of the Concepts of Physics

Abstract

It is presented here a descriptive and qualitative study about the trajectory of students in a course on the Evolution of Physics Concepts, a night course given in the first academic semester in 2012 in a Physics undergraduate course, regarding their conceptions about the Nature of Science (NoS). This research also aims to investigate the teacher's influence on the discipline in these conceptions. The data to the investigation were obtained through the systematic observation of classes, recorded in audio and video, transcribed according to a protocol and then analyzed. A field diary was also used to register data. The students’ conceptions about NoS were identified and analyzed considering the vision of science defended/problematized by the teacher as a parameter. The results show that the individual trajectory of the previously mentioned students, related to their conceptions about NoS, can be grouped in the following way: a) students that explicitly revealed discordance to the vision defended/ problematized by the teacher, but presented changes throughout the course; b) students that disagreed with aspects related to the teacher's view but did not present a change pattern throughout the classes; c) students that exposed questionings/ positioning throughout the classes that clearly revealed conceptions about NoS in accordance with the vision of science defended/ problematized by the teacher, but in the end of the discipline, those who responded the applied questionnaire revealed, direct or indirectly, that they had “erroneous” conceptions about the scientific achievement, having the teacher view as parameter; d) students that, even aware to the historical epistemological nature of the discussions occurred during the classes, hardly exposed questionings/ positioning, throughout the discipline, that explicitly showed their conceptions about the NoS.