En este artículo se examinan las ideas sobre naturaleza de la ciencia que
presentan dos grupos de profesorado en formación: 59 futuros maestros
de educación infantil y 16 futuros profesores de educación secundaria
cursando un módulo que aborda cómo introducir la naturaleza de la
ciencia en el aula. Las concepciones de los participantes se examinan a
través de un cuestionario que incluye 22 afirmaciones, y para las que
deben evaluar su veracidad utilizando una escala Likert de cinco niveles.
Las respuestas al cuestionario se examinan por separado para cada grupo
de profesorado. Para el análisis se agrupan los ítems del cuestionario en
función de los aspectos generales sobre NDC a abordar en el contexto
educativo y se examinan los porcentajes de respuestas correctas e
incorrectas proporcionadas por cada grupo de participantes. Los
resultados generales muestran ciertas concepciones alternativas,
especialmente las relacionadas con la creatividad y la subjetividad de la
ciencia en ambos grupos, considerando en porcentajes elevados que los
científicos siguen siempre el mismo método paso por paso o que las
nuevas hipótesis no se basan generalmente en pruebas.In this work, we discuss the design and implementation of a modelling
activity in geology to promote the conceptual change of two common
ideas among students: the oversizing of the earth's crust and the origin of
the magma. First, we examine the initial ideas presented by 53 10th grade
students. Second, based on these ideas, we design a modelling activity to
address them, and third, we examine how these ideas have been modified
from the beginning to the end of the activity. The results show that while
both ideas are present at the beginning of the activity, it has been useful
for banishing the idea of the oversizing of the terrestrial crust, since at the end of the activity all the students recognize that it is thinner than the rest
of the layers. However, the activity has not been enough to discard the
idea that magma comes directly from the core of the earth, still present in
the majority of students. In this paper we examine pre-service teachers’
conceptions about nature of Science (NOS), in particular the participants
are two groups of 59 pre-service kindergarten teachers and 16 pre-service
secondary teachers attending a course about enacting nature of science in
the classroom. Participants’ conceptions are examined by means of a
questionnaire containing 22 assertions to be evaluated in terms of a Likert
scale composed by five levels. The responses to the questionnaire are
examined separately for each group of pre-service teachers. For the
analysis the items are organised according to the general aspects of NOS
to be addressed in educational contexts. Then we examine the
percentages of correct and incorrect responses provided by each group.
The general results point to several misconceptions, especially related to
creativity and subjectivity of Science in both groups, considering that
scientists always follow the same method step by step, or that new
hypotheses are not generally based on evidence.S
