History and Philosophy of Science in teaching: there are many stones on the way...

Abstract

From different perspectives, the importance of History and Philosophy of Science to the research in Science teaching has been frequently detached on the literature of the area. It is almost a consensus the need to incorporate historical and philosophical elements at High School level, and this need is guiding significative part of undergraduate teacher education courses curriculum. Notwithstanding, High School teachers rarely make use of this kind of knowledge on their classes. In this paper we describe the results of an empirical diagnostic study that surveyed the experiences and difficulties faced by three study groups regarding the didactic use of History and Philosophy of Science. A questionnaire was answered by 82 people, including undergraduate students, postgraduate students and public schools teachers. Results bring to light a list of questions that goes beyond those related to production of high quality didactic material. The pedagogical knowledge of the subject, needs to be better considered on the undergraduate courses, for it seems to be a decisive step to overcome naïve conceptions about the working with History and Philosophy of Science.