Abstract

AZEVEDO, Nathália Helena  and  SCARPA, Daniela Lopes. A large-scale survey on nature of science conceptions of the brazilian biology undergraduates and the potentially associated education factors. Ens. Pesqui. Educ. Ciênc. [online]. 2017, vol.19, pp.484-511. ISSN 1983-2117.  https://doi.org/10.1590/1983-21172017190127.

The results of a study on conceptions of the nature of science (NOS) among Biology undergraduate students are presented here. Four factors potentially associated with the conceptions of this public were statistically tested: educational stage, course type (for pre-service biology teachers or biologists-in-training), contact with meta-scientific themes, and participation in science initiation. The participants were 691 students from 14 Brazilian universities, who answered a contextualized questionnaire about research in Ecology. There was no variation in conceptions between the different educational stages neither from contact with meta-scientific themes, nor participation in scientific initiation. However, undergraduates attending only teacher-training courses presented less-informed NOS conceptions when compared with two other groups, one formed only by biologists-in-training and the other by a combination of biologistsin- training and teaching-training students. Among the 11 investigated aspects of NOS, the students presented less-informed conceptions about those addressing instrumentation and experimental practices. The discussion was directed to certain implications associated with the scenario presented.

Keywords : NOS Conceptions; Biologists-in-Training; Pre-Service Teachers.

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