Experimentos de pensamento: da concepção histórico-epistemológica às contribuições para a aprendizagem significativa em física

Abstract

The present study emerges from the need to discuss the potential of Thought Experiments (TEs) for the learning of Physics. The problem lies in the fact that, although these experiments have and still serve, as a subsidy for the production and dissemination of scientific knowledge, they are little explored as a didactic strategy. Based on this perception, accompanied by the understanding that such experiments can contribute to the construction of physical concepts, the central question of the research was formulated: how the cognitive elements mobilized by students during the performance of TEs in Physics can be representative evidence of meaningful learning? In order to answer it, the research was structured in two parts, the first of bibliographic nature and the other, empirical. First, we tried to identify through bibliographic research the different understandings of what a Thinking Experiment (TE) is and its epistemological understandings from the discussions of James Robert Brown, Roy A. Sorensen, Thomas S. Kuhn and John D. Norton. In addition, this initial moment concerned reporting examples of TE present in the history of Physics and related to these different epistemological understandings. Secondly, from a didactic approach focused on the resolution of problem situations, a set of two TEs is developed with two classes of Physics teachers in initial training, totaling ten participants. These activities sought to verify the contributions of TEs to the meaningful learning of concepts from the didactic use of historical episodes of TEs. For this second moment, subsidy was sought in the Theory of Meaningful Learning (TML), in the voice of David Ausubel and in the studies of Marco Antonio Moreira. From a methodological point of view, the research takes as a reference the qualitative approach, turning to the interpretationist perspective of the data produced, particularly that referring to the second moment that occurred in the context of the classroom. It should be noted that it was preceded by a pilot study carried out with four Physics students making it possible to identify weaknesses and potentialities both in terms of the problem situations to be presented to the participants and in terms of the procedure for analyzing the data. The final study carried out with two groups involved a total of ten students, all from the same degree course in Physics in which the pilot study was carried out. Such data in the final study emerged from the realization of an initial test, applied with the objective of highlighting the possible subsumer knowledge required for the activity, followed by the realization of two historical TEs for each group. As instruments for producing this data, the written materials produced by the academics were used, as well as video recordings of the discussions established between the participants and between them and the researcher. The results made it possible to establish the hierarchy proposed by the theoretical framework and from that point on the data point out that TEs are revealed as a potentially meaningful task, allowing to ascertain evidence of meaningful learning.