Investigative activities based on ICT: a study of the social, affective and cognitive fields of children and young people from the essential fundamentals of argumentation in the context of scientific education

• Main Authors: Geraldo W. Rocha Fernandes, António M. Rodrigues, Carlos Alberto Rosa Ferreira
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul 2020-08-01
• Series: Investigações em Ensino de Ciências
• Subjects: ensino de ciências por investigação; argumentação científica; tecnologias de informação e da comunicação; discurso pedagógico de basil bernstein
• Online Access: https://www.if.ufrgs.br/cref/ojs/index.php/ienci/article/view/1826

This qualitative study aims to understand how children and young people interact with scientific content and develop investigative activities mediated by digital technologies, from three domains: social, affective and cognitive. Children and young people from the municipality of Sintra, in Portugal, participated in this research. For data collection, a questionnaire was used, semi-structured interviews and footage of the development of an investigative activity through a Virtual Thematic Module (VTM). Through the Discursive Textual Analysis, predetermined categories and emerging subcategories were analyzed, using the “essential foundations of argumentation in the context of scientific education”: a) the Taxonomic Elements of Scientific Argumentation (TESA); b) the Hierarchical Levels of the Quality of the Modified Argument (QAM); and c) Characteristic Elements of Basil Bernstein's “Pedagogical Discourse”. It was found that the results are more relevant in an investigative activity, mediated by ICT, when taking into account: 1) aspects of the social domain: related to social characteristics and sociological dimensions; 2) aspects of the affective domain: related to technology, the act of writing on the computer, the availability to learn and the emotional manifestations expressed in situations of joy, motivation, surprise and pleasure; and 3) aspects of the cognitive domain, evidenced by scientific argumentation.