Análise das capacidades argumentativas de professores de química recém formados na Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais

Abstract

Many science education researchers and official documents from several countries (including Brazil) emphasise the importance including argumentative activities in science classrooms. This requires teachers to develop capacities related to argumentation in order to become ableof addressing argumentative activities in their lessons. The recognition of this need has stimulated usto analyse whether and how recently graduated teachers have argumentative capacities. From the literature review, we have decided to investigate five capacity, those of (a) elaborating arguments;(b) counter-arguing; (c) elaborating alternative theories; (d) refuting; and (e) identifying, interpreting, and using evidence. In order to reach this aim, we elaborated a semi-structured interview divided into two parts: one related to a daily topic and the other related to a scientific one. In both of them, each of the capacities was probed at least once. Fourteen chemistry teachers that concluded that graduated course at the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais during 2007, 2008, and 2009 were interviewed. The interviews were video-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analysed qualitatively a process in which there were triangulation between the author of this dissertation and his supervisor. The data analysis showed that the teachers were able to elaborate arguments, alternative theories, and refutations when discussing both topics. However, whilst the majority of the teachers wereable to elaborate counter-arguments when discussing a daily topic, only a minority of them could do so when discussing a scientific topic. Moreover, the teachers had great difficulties in interpreting and using evidence related to both topics. Such difficulties were mainly shownwhen they had to interpret evidence that were against their beliefs. The teachers have also shown great difficulties in establishing relationships between knowledge they believed to be true and evidence and justifications at the same time. The conclusions of this study point outto recommendations that we view as very important for those who work in teachers education.