Resumen

ARANA, Aracelis  y  GONZALEZ, Fredy. Progressive conceptual enrichment: A theoretical explanation of the process of the development of scientific concepts. Rev. Ped [online]. 2006, vol.27, n.79, pp.193-230. ISSN 0798-9792.

This work is in the area of Natural Sciences and deals with how scientific concepts and knowledge are acquired by Higher Education students. The aim of the study was to reconstruct the stages involved in the learning of concepts to seek an answer as to how students reorganize their knowledge in the face of new learning demands. The study is an example of naturalist-ethnographical research of a critical-interpretive nature based on a qualitative approach. Information was collected using participant and non-participant observation of a group of students studying Environmental Education. Analysis was carried out on the register of the students’ mental representations regarding the concept of environment, exteriorized through pictorial, graphical and written modes of expression that were done in class and whose content was submitted to triangulation strategies. The Glasser and Strauss continuous comparison method was used to contrast the information obtained in the different evaluations applied. The findings allowed us to sketch some lines referring to the stages that learning goes through from a previous concept to one institutionally referenced, a process that is characterized by a progressive conceptual enrichment upon which this didactic proposal is based.

Palabras clave : didactics; natural science teaching; meaningful learning; conceptual enrichment.