THE PEDRO II SCHOOL’S SCIENCE LABORATORY: AN EVALUATION BASED ON THE TEACHERS’ PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

The present study’s objective was to evaluate how the science laboratory activities of the Pedro II School’s elementary education, assist the regular classroom teacher’s pedagogical practices. To this end, a theoretical approach was developed which situated science teaching as “scientific literacy”, explained the science laboratory’s creation and development history in this institution and applied an evaluative approach centered on the participants. In the methodological point of view, the study involved two basic stages: the first was a focus group with the Pedro II School’s teachers, considered experienced in science teaching, whose speeches originated the evaluative categories later evaluated. The second resulted in the application of a questionnaire to a group of 12 teachers, all new to Pedro II School, to evaluate to what extent the evaluative categories were present in these teachers pedagogical practices. The data analysis based on the participating teachers’ speeches revealed that the newer teachers endorse and widen the perspective of the science laboratory activities importance for the conventional classrooms pedagogical practices. The newer group of teachers significantly broadened the initial evaluative categories, providing information for the construction of an integrative framework that can serve as a basis to determine the presence of indicators, expressed therein.