AVALIAÇÃO DA INFLUÊNCIA DAS CONCEPÇÕES ALTERNATIVAS NO ENSINO E APRENDIZAGEM DA FÍSICA: UM ESTUDO DE CASO EM MOÇAMBIQUE

The present work describes the results of a research work that fosters the evaluation of the use of the students alternative conceptions regarding the heat and temperature concepts. The development of the research started with a detail literature review of the students most common alternative conceptions. Then, a questionnaire was done to 25 students of the 9th grade in a school in Mozambique, with 7 open questions. These questions were both based in the literature (5) and developed by the authors of the research (2). The survey was later reformulated and expanded to 13 questions, to capture better the alternative conceptions. This new questionnaire was applied to 121 students from two different classes. Both classes were done used to present the concepts of heat ad temperature: in the experiment class, the teaching considered the alternative concepts, while in the control class, the teaching followed the traditional descriptive approach. The results clearly show that the students in the experiment class improved the formulation of heat and temperature concepts compared to the control class. Thus, it is concluded that the use of alternative conceptions in teaching is fundamental to develop a significative learning, emphasizing Ausubel theory of valorising previous knowledge.