O entendimento conceitual do processo de dissolução a partir da elaboração de modelos e sob a perspectiva da teoria de campos conceituais

• Ano de defesa: 2013
• Autor(a) principal: Nilmara Braga Mozzer
• Tipo de documento: Tese
• Tipo de acesso: Acesso aberto
• Idioma: por
• Instituição de defesa: Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais; UFMG
• Palavras-chave em Português: Educação; Ciencia Estudo e ensino; Modelagem de processos
• Link de acesso: http://hdl.handle.net/1843/BUBD-9FUG8A

Modelling is an authentic practice in science education because it makes it possible to integrate the individual and the social processes of knowledge building in that domain. In this study, modeling-based activities produced from the Model of Modelling Diagram favoured individuals to experience the stages of producing explicative models for the dissolving process; expressing such models in different modes of representation (concrete, gestural, verbal, with special emphasis on the drawing of comparisons, etc.); testing and evaluation of the models. In order to investigate the subjects conceptual understanding about dissolving when experiencing such stages, we integrated the modeling theoretical perspective with the Theory of Conceptual Fields (TCF), proposed by the French psychologist Gérard Vergnaud. Six students from the last grade of the fundamental level of a private school in Belo Horizonte participated in our study. They performed the modeling activities individually and under the supervision of the researcher, who questioned them whilst they proposed their models to represent and explain the submicroscopic behavior of the systems chalk and water and powder juice and water. The interviews were video and audio recorded, and all the material produced by the subjects (concrete models, drawings, and worksheets) comprised our data gathering. The interviews of four subjects were selected to be analysed due to the clear and detailed way their ideas had been expressed. In order to analyse the data, we produced case studies for each of the subjects, and conducted a micro-developmental and processing analysis of the multiple sources of data (audio and video recordings of the interviews, their transcriptions, concrete models, photos, written material, and the researchers filed notes). The representation schemes (RS) for the dissolving process were identified, and their changes were followed. In the activities related to the production and expression of models, the subjects used the mesoscopic scattering, according to which dissolving is a process of wearing of a mesoscopic solute by a continuum or mesoscopic solvent, followed by the dispersion of the particles of the former into the last; or the RS mesoscopic reaction, according to which dissolving is a process of encompassing of mesoscopic and familiar particles of solute and solvent. In the activities related to tests and evaluation of the models, they started using the RS sub-microscopic physical union (according to which dissolving is a process in which the sub-microsopic and spherical particles of the same type are kept connected due to the incapacity of the solvent to separate the solute particles), and evolved to use the RS sub-microscopic interaction (according to which dissolving is a process that depends on the balance of the intensity of the electrostatic interactions established between the sub-microscopic particles of the solute and the solvent in the system). The comparisons made by the subjects followed the same pattern of evolution: from those of mere appearance, focused on observable superficial features, to analogies, focused on relational ones. Such an evolution of their understanding was made evident by the analysis of the RS and that occurs from the subjects participation in the modeling-based activities is progressive and gradual. In this evolution of their understanding was made evident by the analysis of the RS and that occurs from the subjects participation I the modeling-based activities is progressive and gradual. In this evolution, the individual authenticity of the models continues during the whole process, since it does not mean substitution or extinction of the subjects ideas. It rather means an adaptive development of their RS that includes changing and enlargement of their knowledge-in-action as they experience multiple situations. Since modeling-based teaching and the TCF assume mental and material engagement of the subjects in the action, their integration showed to be fruitful in supporting the understanding of some aspects concerning knowledge construction in modeling-based activities and, as so, seem to be fruitful in the study of other authentic teaching situations.