INTRODUCTION

The need for a the population to be scientifically literate extends to the present day. This need arose due to the necessity of debating the countless advances brought to society by science and technology, and the problems that are a consequence of them - such as environmental degradation and the poor distribution of science products (^{ROCHA; TÉRAN, 2010}).

In this scenario, many other spaces for the production of scientific knowledge emerged, and since then, museums, zoos, and science centers have taken on the responsibility of the scientific education of the population. Thus, learning occurs in different spaces, referred to by the literature as spaces of formal, non-formal, and informal education (^{MARANDINO, 2009}; ^{CAZELLI, 2005}).

Importantly, formal space refers to a place where the education carried out is formalized, guaranteed by law, related to the Basic Education School Institutions, and defined, in the case of Brazil, in Law 9394/96 on the Guidelines and Bases of National Education. This place of formal education is the school, with all its facilities (^{JACOBUCCI, 2008}). On the other hand, the terms non-formal and informal education emerged in the late 1960s, namely education outside the school environment. Although extra-school activities already received attention, the new nomenclature strengthened this way of teaching (^{LA BELLE, 1982}).

Currently, there is a discussion regarding the definition of these terms. Understanding that there is no single and delimited definition, in this study, we use the one of ^{Vieira (2005}) for non-formal education: “organized and systematic education outside the formal teaching environment; it occurs when there is an intention, by certain individuals, to create or pursue certain objectives outside the school institution” (^{VIEIRA, 2005}, p. 03).

With a focus on non-formal education spaces, it is crucial to identify the different scenarios and intentions of their activities. Some areas have regulations and responsible technical team qualified for receiving visitors to learn about the research, take guided tours, and, in many cases, interact with the exposed material, as is the case of museums, ecological parks, botanical gardens, aquariums, zoos, and research institutions. There are also natural or urban environments, which do not have this institutional structure, where educational practices are also adopted. These places include theaters, parks, squares, beaches, and cinemas, among many other locations (^{JACOBUCCI, 2008}). It is crucial to highlight the pedagogical intentionality of these spaces, since, for example, there are parks with and without this intention. In the case of parks and botanical gardens, in addition to environmental education and preservation activities, visitors often participate in experiences that arouse curiosity and encourage contemplation and reflection in the natural environment.

There is a brief discussion concerning formal teaching spaces that, in specific activities, become non-formal. This is the case of university extension projects that, at certain times, receive the external community members at the university laboratories for activities that promote scientific learning and dissemination. These activities include workshops and visits to the university’s facilities.

Research involving university extensionist activities is significant as we are in the process of inserting these activities into the undergraduate curricula. This process is not new since the National Education Plan (PNE 2001-2010) determined that 10% of the credits required for undergraduate courses should consist of extension actions (^{GADOTTI, 2017}).

In the 2014-2023 PNE (^{Law 13005/2014}), this obligation, which proposes to meet the national public policies, reappears in Strategy 12.7, which make up goal 12, ensuring “at least ten percent (10%) of the total curricular credits required for undergraduate education in university extension programs and projects, prioritizing its action towards areas of great social relevance” (^{BRASIL, 2014}). It is possible to observe, between the first and the second PNE, an essential advance between the view of university extensionist activities. The second PNE already supports a more common and emancipatory view, placing the action in areas of social importance as a priority (^{GADOTTI, 2017}).

Another factor that makes this discussion important is the fact that the university extensionist activity is one of the pillars of the university, and the work carried out by the mediators is part of an interdisciplinary extensionist action aimed at the social transformation of students participating in the New Talents Project. Extensionist actions of this nature are of great importance in the training of undergraduate students. For the external community, i.e., the students participating in these actions, the university environment becomes a non-formal teaching space. This space plays a vital role in bringing the external community closer to the academic environment and undergraduate students, inserting primary education for students in the scientific environment and allowing for other paths to scientific literacy.

1. MEDIATOR AND MEDIATION IN NON-FORMAL EDUCATION SPACES

In non-formal education spaces, there is a significant character in the performance of activities: the monitor. In this study, we refer to them as mediators, but depending on their role and the objective of each space, they can have different names. Their presence in non-formal education spaces is already established (^{MASSARANI, 2007}; ^{SILVA; OLIVEIRA, 2011}).

Under supervision, they are usually responsible for preparing materials, presenting instructions, and mediating visits. In some cases, the visit fails to promote the expected learning unless the mediator is present; thus, these individuals are a significant link between the activity, the visitor, and the construction of knowledge.

The mediator’s actions also vary according to the activity and the institution in which they operate. There are spaces where, in addition to the mediating visits, the mediating monitors prepare exhibitions, produce didactic material, give lectures and workshops, put on plays, and promote trails and other activities (^{SILVA; OLIVEIRA, 2011}). In their performance, the mediator must go beyond the scientific content and learn about the social and human aspects of science, and how they reflect in daily life. It is also necessary to express oneself clearly and correctly, to avoid professorial attitudes, to infer previous knowledge, to measure the contents, to stimulate curiosity, and conduct a reflective and interactive dialogue with the public while promoting the construction of knowledge (^{MATSUURA, 2007}).

^{Gaspar (1993}) relies on Vygotsky’s theories when explaining that the mediator must be the most capable character in the social interactions that occur spontaneously and, when prioritizing the interaction, “speak less and listen more; ask less and answer more; to be less concerned with the rigor of the concepts issued and more concerned with the ability to understand these concepts” (^{GASPAR, 1993}, p. 183-184). Therefore, in a non-formal education activity, the monitor acts by mediating the construction of knowledge, prepares the content, and presents it attractively, helping the participants to understand the presentation. The monitor also focuses on the participant, uses their speech to motivate them, and prioritizes dialogue and the construction of knowledge.

Now, it is necessary to understand the concept of mediation. In the ^{Vygotskyan perspective (1988}), mediation refers to the intervention of an intermediate element in a relationship, which is no longer direct and becomes mediated by this interlocutor. It is a fundamental process to enable interaction between the individual and their environment.

Vygotsky states that humans develop in the social environment, and the superior mental processes of individuals (thought, language, and volitional behavior - that is, behavior that comes from the will) originates in social processes. These mental processes are developed and mediated by instruments and signs built into the individuals’ social, historical, and cultural environments.

According to ^{Moreira (2009}), for Vygotsky, cognitive development cannot be understood without a reference to the social and cultural context. However, it is more than a matter of considering the social environment as an essential variable in mental processes. In the Vygotskyan perspective, cognitive development is characterized as social relations converted into mental functions. Thus, through socialization, we can develop more complex mental processes. They are designed in the student’s relationship with their environment, and not the other way around (^{MOREIRA, 2009}).

In non-formal education and mediated activities, this development is primarily provided by the mediator’s action who promote socialization among and with the students. In cases where activities are proposed collectively, the mediator’s task is to bridge the gap between what the participant is experiencing in the socialization process and the new knowledge, whether through pre-prepared activities, responses to participants, or by instigating students to participate.

Regarding cognitive development, Vygotsky calls the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) the distance between the individual’s actual level (what they already know) and their potential level (functions that still need further development) (^{MOREIRA, 1999}). The ZPD defines the cognitive functions that are still in the maturation process, is a measure of the learning potential, and represents a dynamic region in which cognitive development occurs.

By considering ^{Vygotsky’s (2003}) theory, we consider the monitors as necessary mediators. In the social interaction that characterizes teaching, they are the characters who have already internalized socially shared meanings, and who organize and control the environment in which the interactions with participants take place. Socialization is the authentic level of the educational process, and the role of the monitor is to mediate it. We should note that the mediator is also a part of this process, and they use their mediation work so that the potential development of students becomes the new reality.

Still, socialization may not be identical for everyone, since students from different school levels may be included in an activity. One of the critical functions of the monitor is to make mediate between the different types of students. Individuals convert what they learn in social relationships into psychological functions through mediation, which, according to Vygotsky, is typical of human cognition. Activities are internalized through mediated actions (^{GARTON, 1992}).

After presenting the theoretical framework regarding learning mediated through socialization, according to Vygotsky’s perspective, we propose a relationship with the mediating action perspective brought by ^{Salomon and Perkins (1998}). While Vygotsky presents how learning occurs collectively, these authors present the types of social mediation that can occur in the socialization process of individuals.

2. SALOMON AND PERKINS’ MEDIATION PROPOSAL

Salomon and Perkins adopted a unifying information-processing perspective on learning that allows us to describe, compare, and contrast different views of learning. According to the authors, “the idea of information processing includes no biasing presumptions about where those processes lie or what entity they serve” (^{SALOMON; PERKINS, 1998}, p. 3).

The information processes occur within the mind of an individual (the entity learning) or within complex webs of social interaction (the social entity learning could be a team, a corporation, or a loose group of individuals). “In any case, information is being processed, and learning and forgetting occur in the sense that lasting changes resulting from the processing— whether “in” the individual or “in” a social entity—can be identified” (^{SALOMON; PERKINS, 1998}, p. 3).

The individual mediation (IM) describes the conception of the individual learner, emphasizing the acquisition of knowledge and cognitive skill as transferable commodities (^{SALOMON; PERKINS, 1998}). ^{Salomon and Perkins (1998}) propose two categories of individual mediation: learning to be a social apprentice and learning social content. These two categories do not fit the objectives of this analysis, as they deal with individual learning; instead, they approach what is learned differently from the Vygotskian perspective presented in this study.

Social mediation (SM) is the sociocultural conception of learning in which active knowledge construction can be a collective participatory process that emphasizes student context, social interaction, and situatedness. That could be the one that conception situative participatory learning (^{SALOMON; PERKINS, 1998}). The social mediation presented by the authors consists of four categories that we present below.

The first category (active social mediation) reflects studies on cognitive development, mentoring, collaborative, and reciprocal learning, etc. The second category emphasizes participatory learning. The third category deals with the role of the mediator and the tools used in the learning process, and the last category approaches learning involving groups such as teams and other organizations.

Subsequently, we detail the four categories of social mediation proposed by ^{Salomon and Perkins (1998}).

2.4. THE SOCIAL ENTITY AS A LEARNING SYSTEM

Social learning takes on a very different meaning when it comes to learning involving teams, organizations, cultures, and other collectives. “Here it is not necessarily the case that one agent is helping another to learn. Rather, the focus falls on a collective agency that, as a collective, acquires more knowledge, understanding, or skill, or a different climate or culture” (^{SALOMON; PERKINS, 1998}, p 12).

In summary, “the group constitutes a collective learning system, a system that functions better or worse as a learner depending on how well its structures address critical conditions of learning” (^{SALOMON; PERKINS, 1998}, p.12). In non-formal education spaces, often due to the lack of time for this learning system to be built, this type of mediation is not found because, in addition to time, it requires commitment from the group that is not possible in sparse activities (^{SALOMON; PERKINS, 1998}).

Social mediation, presented in the four categories as proposed by ^{Salomon and Perkins (1998}), can be summarized in the following figure:

Source: The authors.

Figure 1 Scheme of the proposed mediation by ^{Salomon and Perkins (1998}) 

According to the proposal presented, mediation starts from a mediating subject, it evolves to a subject that uses scaffolding, then to a mediating subject that uses scaffolding and allows the mediation to be carried out by others subjects, and finally to a level of independence in which all subjects participate in mediation and knowledge construction.

With the increase of this independence, the degree of the mediating subjects also increases. However, all processes can happen in the teaching spaces, some more than the others, and it is essential to emphasize that one level does not cancel the other. Among the activity proposals, the different levels may present their advantages depending on time, space, the number of subjects, learning needs, and educational objectives.

Given the theoretical framework presented, we here address the questions that led us to start this research. We analyzed the proposal and mediators reports of a non-formal education activity carried out in the university environment by mediators who are undergraduate and graduate students and presented the question “is it possible to find, in the reports of these mediators, se characteristics which approximate the mediation performed to the proposal of ^{Salomon and Perkins (1998}).

This question leads to the general objective of this research, which is to analyze aspects of monitors’ mediation of a non-formal education activity. Specific objectives include: (i) to analyze how the monitors identify their role as a mediator in the project’s actions and (ii) to analyze if and how the mediations proposed by ^{Salomon and Perkins (1998}) were developed by the mediators.

3. METHODOLOGICAL PROCEDURES

This research had a qualitative approach as it sought mediators of a university extension activity as the data source and the researchers as the primary analysis tool (^{BOGDAN; BIKLEN, 1994}). We initially present the context of the project developed at a public university in the State of Paraná, in which the mediators acted as monitors and, later, the methodological procedures.

The New Talents Project is a university extension project that emerged in 2011 to offer workshops focused on the construction of knowledge, providing Basic Education students with the opportunity to understand natural science themes through experiments, plays, games, and other recreational activities, which approach non-formal education activities. Throughout this research, three editions of the workshops occurred. In two of them, the topics covered were Comparative Anatomy, Cell Biology and Histology, Neuroscience, Reproductive System and Sexuality, and Zoonoses. In the other workshop, the themes of the activities were Biotechnology and Microbiology, Botany, Drugs and Society, Physiology and Nutrition, and Zoology. Each workshop occurred on five Saturdays; primary education students were organized into five groups on the first day of the workshop, and each group went through a different workshop each week.

The workshops had two types of monitors: the workshops’ permanent monitors (n=29) and the monitors who accompanied the students (n=10). The monitors participating in this research were the workshops’ permanent monitors, as they not only prepared the activities but were also responsible for their development. The 29 volunteer monitors were undergraduate and graduate students from biological, agricultural, and health programs, and were between 18 and 27 years old. Of these, eight participated in the project at least once when they were students of basic education, and 19 had already participated at least once as mediators. All participants in this research signed the Informed Consent Form (ICF).

The research involved what ^{Chizzotti (2006}) defines as a systematic collection of information, using a questionnaire and a semi-structured interview. We performed the analysis of the questionnaires and the interview through categorization (^{BARDIN, 2011}). We organized the questionnaire data in Context Units and Registration Units a posteriori. We carried out the analysis of the interview in a fluctuating reading fluctuating, i.e., we examined the interviewees’ responses for characteristics of the categories proposed by ^{Salomon and Perkins (1998}), and allocated them into the categories elaborated a priori. The proposed categories were also composed of Registration Units (RU), which emerged a posteriori by reading the excerpts of the interviews. This process allowed us to discuss the questions that led to this research.

At first, the data were collected through an electronic questionnaire (Google Docs) and answered before the project activities started. From this questionnaire, two questions were used in this article: 1. How do you define the monitor’s role in the type of activity we perform? (regarding the mediator’s role in the project) and 2. What is more important to take into account when preparing an activity for the project? (involving aspects and criteria that the mediator considers important in the preparation of the material).

Subsequently, between the second and the fifth week of activities, interviews were conducted with sixteen mediators. We chose interviews as, according to ^{Silveira (2002}), they are a social interaction in which both the interviewer and the interviewee act in the production of knowledge. We can say that a survey that uses interviews is social interaction, in which the primary means of exchange are words.

We prepared the interview script according to each item proposed by ^{Salomon and Perkins (1998}). In Category 1, the mediator assists in the student’s learning by forming a system with them. We proposed two questions: 1. Choose an activity that you prepared and make an assessment of how it occurred. How do you evaluate this activity? 2. What did you do to help the students to understand the content? Did you have to act in different ways because the students are from different grades?

Category 2 deals with the construction of knowledge as a participatory and collective process: 1. Can you identify if the students learned? Explain how this happened. 2. Did the interaction between the students and in the relationship with the mediator serve as a vehicle for learning? Please explain.

Category 3 addresses mediation through cultural scaffolding, i.e., the materials and activities prepared: 1. How was preparing the activities? 2. What factors were taken into account when choosing the activities?

The last category presented by the authors is not an analysis category as it involves a collective system, such as teams and large organizations, that builds learning over a longer time.

4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

We divided the results into two sections. In the first one, we present the discussion of data collected through electronic questionnaires, whereby we seek to obtain perceptions from mediators regarding their role and aspects related to the preparation of materials and activities carried out in the New Talents Project.

In the second section, we discuss the results of the data collected through the interviews, with which we seek to make comparisons to the proposals of ^{Salomon and Perkins (1998}), highlighting aspects of mediation.

5. ANALYSIS OF THE QUESTIONNAIRES

For the analysis of the electronic questionnaires, we listed two questions, and the answers allowed for the preparation of two Context Units (CU) and its Registration Units (RU).

FINAL CONSIDERATIONS

This study aimed to analyze aspects related to mediation carried out in a non-formal education activity. More specifically, we analyzed how the monitors identified their role as mediators and whether the mediations proposed by ^{Salomon and Perkins (1998}) were developed. The theoretical framework relied on aspects related to non-formal education spaces, mediation and mediators, and the mediation proposal by Salomon and Perkins (1998).

The analysis of the data obtained in the questionnaires, collected before the beginning of the activities, showed that the perception of the mediators is very distant from the idea of mediation and that the mediators are still very focused on the specific content and the proposal of teaching that content.

Regarding the analysis of the mediator’s role, most of the results show that it is the mediator’s role to transmit the content. It also presents anaïve view that the shared knowledge is ready and finished, rather than an individual construction of each student. We can consider this a negative result as this type of thinking cannot be present in the mediator’s discourse, which often repeats the teaching he received during his training. Results also show the mediator’s role is as a point of contact between the university and the participants of the activity.

We still consider that, even if there is no reference to the mediation in the subjects’ discourse, we can infer that the mediators do not see themselves as facilitators of the learning process and knowledge construction.

Regarding the analysis of aspects taken into account during the preparation of the activities, results continue to be related to the content, even those that point out the importance of methodology or aspects involving the student. Here we identify again that the mediators have a content-focused view. In the construction of the workshop, they were concerned with its content and the quantity, and less emphasis on other aspects related to the participants, such as arousing their curiosity and interest in science. As long as the student is not the center of planning, mediation fails to be effective.

In the analysis of the interviews carried out after the first week of activities, we grouped the results in the categories proposed by ^{Salomon and Perkins (1998}). As for the active social mediation of individual learning, we found speeches mentioning the student-motivating mediation and mediation aimed at contextualization. We can infer that the mediators perceive the need to adapt the activities according to the students. However, we noted that this perception is still superficial, and it only appeared when performing the activities. Nevertheless, to promote mediation more effectively, such perception should have occurred at the time of planning.

Here, a concern emerged: since they do not have this previous perception, the mediators are worried only with the activity and not with the process as a whole. Even so, it is possible to identify that there was mediation and that the interviewees perceive themselves as responsible for learning, differing from the data presented in the electronic questionnaires.

Additionally, we found that none of the mediators fits ^{Salomon and Perkins’ (1998}) proposal when it comes to social mediation as the construction of participatory knowledge. Even being able to identify the interactions, the mediators still show signs of unilateral mediation and, therefore, of non-contribution to the interaction for the construction of new knowledge.

Regarding mediation supported by scaffolding, although they consider it important to differentiate themselves from the school context, most mediators are restricted to content only when preparing materials, based on their volume and depth, and also on the content that is important for the students’ future entrance exams.

Noteworthily, the project’s activity proposal lacked discussions and instructions, enabling the mediators to understand the potential of mediation in activity preparation and development. Mediation should already be part of the objectives established for projects like the one studied in this work since an important part of the projects in non-formal education spaces is to approach scientific knowledge in a manner other than the content and transmission-focused conception, which is still present in many schools.

Also, this study demonstrated that students from different courses are interested in extension activities, whose preparation becomes important as the curricula of many university programs fail to include this type of training. A brief review of the subjects’ program schedules showed that none of them include courses related to university extension. This fact allows us to infer that the subjects do not have a specific preparation for extension activities throughout their programs. Therefore, there is a need for new research that, in addition to identifying mediators’ perceptions, provides them with instructional opportunities.