Los dilemas socio-científicos: análisis del diseño de actividades de profesorado de educación secundaria en formación inicial.

Abstract

Dilemmas are presented as a helpful strategy for developing critical thinking and human culture in pre-service teachers because they allow them to argue and make decisions by posing real problems in the classroom that are very close to their daily lives. Among them, socio-scientific dilemmas are fascinating as they link science and technology with culture and society. This work presents the results of a socio-scientific dilemma design activity implemented with 108 pre-service teachers of the master’s degree in Secondary Education at the University of Malaga (Spain), specializing in Physics and Chemistry, and Biology and Geology, during two academic years. The activity asked to define a socio-scientific dilemma, identify arguments for and against the dilemma, analyze the fundamental elements of an argument (evidence, justification, and conclusion), and offer possible contributions to the development of critical thinking in secondary school students. The most recurrent themes of the designs developed focused on health, energy and scientific research. Most pre-service teachers recognised the elements of a good argument in their productions and emphasized that dilemmas allowed them to develop various skills related to critical thinking, especially the critical analysis of information, argumentation and decision-making.