Modelos mentales y modelos conceptuales en la enseñanza & aprendizaje de las ciencias

• Autor(a) principal: Moreira, Marco Antonio
• Data de Publicação: 2002
• Outros Autores: Greca, Ileana María, Rodríguez Palmero, Maria Luz
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: spa
• Título da fonte: Repositório Institucional da UFRGS
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10183/204845
• topic: Modelos mentais; Ensino de ciências; Mental models; Conceptual models; Science teaching; Modelos mentales; Modelos conceptuales; Enseñanza de las ciencias

Mental models are structural analogues of state of affairs, events or objects, of the world. People operate cognitively with mental models. The understanding of a physical system, for instance, implies the construction of a mental model which provides for explanation and prediction regarding such a system. Conceptual models, on the other hand, are models designed by scientists, engineers, teachers in order to facilitate the understanding and the teaching of physical sistems or natural phenomena. That is, teachers and students operate with mental models, but they try to teach and to learn conceptual models. Scientists, in general, design conceptual models, however, they do it through their mental models. Unfortunately, in practice, the relationship between conceptual models and mental models is not direct and simple as we could think and this has relevant implications for the teaching and learning of physical and natural sciences, as well as for research in science education.