Caracterización de las concepciones sobre naturaleza de la ciencia de docentes de ciencias naturales en ejercicio

Abstract

Contributing to the scientific literacy of the population has been an objective of educational reforms in different countries and accordingly, the understanding of NOS is a structural factor in scientific literacy. Thus, the development of appropriate conceptions of NOS is one of the commonly stated objectives for education. However, different investigations report inadequate NOS conceptions in science teachers and this is a difficulty to integrate it into their classes. The general objective of this research is to characterize the conceptions about NOS of primary and secondary teachers who teach science in Bogotá, from a contemporary perspective. The research is based on the post-positivist paradigm with quantitative methodology. Sampling is stratified random with proportional allocation. The sample is obtained from the universe of educational establishments in the city and consists of 1033 teachers who teach biology, chemistry, physics or sciences in the 19 urban locations of Bogotá. An instrument on a four-point Likert scale and 23 items is designed and validated. The validation responds to the criteria of validity and reliability. The first is carried out through content validity by expert judgment, construct validation through Exploratory Factor Analysis and Confirmatory Factor Analysis. The second is calculated using Cronbach's Alpha coefficient (α), McDonald's Omega coefficient (ω) and the mean inter-item correlation. To demonstrate the relationships between variables, the Spearman correlation index, Multiple Correspondence analysis and the decision tree technique are used. Among the main conclusions, some categories are identified, characterized and conceptually expanded, which, from our point of view, account for the didactically valuable aspects for the characterization of NOS of primary and secondary students and pre-service and in-service teachers. Although it does not pretend to be a complete characterization, given the very complexity of science and the reflections that are built on it, as a whole they allow us to approach its practice, its products and the relationships that can be established between it, society and technology. Five factors are identified through the EFA. For the factors creativity, inferences, empirical nature and theory-laden, models and idealization and dynamics, methodologies, theories and external sociology, the un-informed conceptions are dominant. In the internal sociology factor, adequate conceptions predominate. It is identified that attending in HPS seminars contributes to improving NOS conceptions, although it is not enough. Teacher training requires incorporating explicit reflections about NOS because the teaching exercise per se does not contribute to modifications of NOS conceptions. As contributions of the present investigation to the knowledge of the field, the following are listed: 1) the design of an instrument to characterize conceptions of NOS considering contributions of contemporary philosophy, 2) the validation of the instrument accounting for the psychometric criteria, 3) definition process of categories to characterize NOS, based on previous categories, contributions from the Philosophy of Science, and 4) the report of conceptions of practicing teachers who teach science in Bogotá.