Teachers’ conceptions of learning school science in service biology

Abstract

The main objective of this research is to identify and characterize in service teachers’ learning conceptions of school level biology, related to the Liker questionary. The results show epistemological trends in school science learning according to the analysis of cognitive maps developed for two biology teachers selected from a group of 117 subjects who participated in this research. It follows that the system of ideas and beliefs that define teachers’ conceptions of learning biology, result in persistent ideas of change and sometimes contradict themselves, which led us to infer that learning, to them, is the appropriation of meanings rather than a complex individual or collective construction.