Argumentation from Socioscientific Issues in pre-service biology teachers education

Abstract

Recognizing the importance of argumentation for Biology teaching, especially by facilitating the learning of/about sciences, the present study aims to evaluate contents mobilized in the arguments of biology students in the resolution of socio-scientific issues (SSI), based on an education contextualized by History and Philosophy of Sciences (HPS) and Science, Technology, Society and Environment (STSE). For this, we conducted a pedagogical course using SSI as cases and argumentation activities, involving 22 undergraduate biology students. For the collection of data, we use the arguments produced by the students. The analysis of the data initially took place with the structural and content evaluation of these arguments, based respectively on the models of Toulmin (2006) and Sá (2010). In general, we realized that the workshop was able to promote the argumentative discourse, as well as requiring students to mobilize various aspects of content. However, we also noted arguments of low complexity and inaccuracy in the contents mobilized. In this scenario, even though the use of QSC has shown promise for the development of argumentative abilities and mobilization of scientific contents, in contextualized and interdisciplinary teaching, there are still difficulties for this method to be effective in science education. Therefore, it is necessary to emphasize the importance of carrying out more studies about argumentation with SSI, and greater investments in discussions that approaches historical and philosophical aspects of science as well as the teaching of STSE relations.

Keywords

• Formação Docente
• Prática Argumentativa
• Ensino de Biologia
• Educação Ciência, Tecnologia, Sociedade e Ambiente
• Questões Sociocientíficas