A epistemologia-em-uso: imagens de ciência em livros didáticos de química

Abstract

In this dissertation we present the research developed to analyze the image of science in Chemistry textbooks, particularly because of the importance of science and technology in the formative dimension of the curriculum aiming citizenship. Our objective was to identify the image of science in a textbook of Chemistry. We developed a methodological approach, in which we intend to spot textual marks, that is, indications that configure one underlying epistemological profile to the textbook. From the theoretical reference presented by Campos and Cachapuz (1997), two categories of epistemological were identified in the evaluated chapters as far as textual marks are concerned, the Empirist/indutivist and the Rationalist/deductivist ones. To the analysis, the chapters were broken up semantically. The semantic fragments were categorized by using the Book-of-codes, constructed and refined through recurs reliability (intercodes agreement) and validation by a specialist so as to certify the trustworthiness and auditability of the methodological procedures. Three chapters of three Chemistry textbooks were selected, fragmented and then collected as data (Introduction and Batteries were chosen by the researcher, while Radioactivity was chosen at random). Their semantic fragments were categorized and the identified textual marks were registered. Those marks served to the analysis and definition of the respective epistemological profiles in order to characterize the nature of science, the use of history of science, the science/technology relationship and society. To study the possible pedagogical results, we have used the theoretical references of the Tacit Knowledge (Polany), Theory-of-action (Argyris and Schön) and Conceptual Fields (Vergnaud), which assess the possible pedagogical results of the epistemology-in-use, particularly in the textual marks exercises type present in the textbook. We can conclude that the methodological tool has a significative accuracy (textual marks were identified in 98,6% of the 1006 collected fragments). This precision made possible the recognition of characteristic profiles in the analyzed books, highlighting their specific particularities as far as the presented image of science is concerned, as well as the existence of an explicit epistemology in the paragraphs which is not always coincident with the epistemology-in- use (tacit) in other categories of textual marks (exercises, experiments and iconographic marks).