A teoria das representações sociais para estudo das concepções docentes no ensino da física em nossas escolas : a física newtoniana

Abstract

The social representations of Newtonian Physics among government secondary school teachers of Physics in Maringá, PR, Brazil and surrounding region are investigated. Moscovici's Theory of Social Representations (1961) was analyzed to characterize the social representations of a group of 8 teachers. A research was undertaken with 8 government school teachers in Maringá and surrounding region to study their representation of Newtonian Physics in the classroom. Research stages comprised: eight problems on Newtonian Physics were given to the teachers; four of the above constituted the interview; four problems were given to the teachers for their solution. When the answers were analyzed and the solutions' core suggested by the eight teachers was determined, the teachers' anchorage was consequently revealed. Results show that 7 out of 8 teachers based their results on Newtonian Physics but de-linked from its geometry and bound by one or other concept without any contextualization. Only one teacher accounted for Newtonian Physics with a contextualization of thrust, mass, acceleration, inertia, speed and gravity, coupled to its geometry.