The Explanatory Models about the eukaryotic cell by secondary school students

Abstract

The main objective of this study was to examine the explanatory models of secondary school students, about the structure of the animal eukaryotic cells before and after an didactic intervention, based from the cognitive model of science (Giere, 1992) and the constructivist learning cycle (Sanmartí, 2000). The research took place in two stages: a. Descriptive and interpretative stage, we categorized the explanatory models identified in 18 families of models and b. The pre-experimental stage, it identifies whether there were significant differences between the models before and after the educational intervention by Wilcoxon test and data randomization, ANOVA. The main findings showed that didactic intervention encourages the building of explanatory models, which are characterized by more specialized language, new relationships between the organelles and cellular functions and the ability to incorporate new elements to enrich the school cell model, demonstrating that these models evolve progressively (RodrÍguez and Moreira, 1999; Justi, 2006).

Keywords

• modelo cognitivo de ciencia
• modelos explicativos
• célula eucarionte animal
• historia de la ciencia
• educación secundaria
• cognitive model of science
• explanatory models
• animal eucarionte cell
• history of science
• secundary school