Análise de crenças e atitudes de estudantes do curso de Licenciatura em Química sobre natureza da tecnologia como indicadores da alfabetização científica e tecnológica

Abstract

Technology is part of several contexts in today's world, a fact that corroborates the need for Scientific and Technological Literacy (STL) on the part of citizens. The STL includes, in addition to scientific concepts and procedures, the understanding of the Nature of Science and Technology. In this research, we direct our study to the Nature of Technology (NoT) as a component of the STL, and more specifically, to the initial training of Chemistry teachers, considering that research of NoT and Chemistry teachers in training are still incipient in Brazil. Therefore, in this research we aim to analyze the beliefs and attitudes of students in graduation in Chemistry about the Nature of Technology (NoT), considering them as indicators of their STL. We count on the participation of students who attended the last period of the course. For data analysis, we adopted qualitative and quantitative approaches and the following methodological steps: 1) selection of COCTS questions that involve aspects of NoT; 2) Application of the selected questions with students of a degree course in Chemistry of the last period; and 3) qualitative and quantitative analysis of student responses to COCTS questions. From the analysis of the research carried out, as main results we highlight those students expressed plausible beliefs and attitudes for seven of the eight COCTS questions related to NoT, such as technology and the interdependence between science and technology, and appropriate beliefs and attitudes about STS relationships. Additionally, it is worth mentioning that students were expected to express partial agreement with the plausible phrases of the questions and not to strongly agree or disagree with them, as observed. Therefore, the results obtained in this research point to evidence of the need to discuss NoT within the scope of the initial training of Chemistry teachers, from the perspective of their STL.