Microbiologia no ensino médio: a visão de estudantes sobre o tema e as possíveis causa de dificuldades de aprendizagem.

Abstract

Microbiology, as well as other areas of biology that are characterized by demanding a higher level of abstraction and are considered difficult to understand, despite being related to common aspects of everyday life, is highlighted when it comes to difficulties in understanding the content by the students. Based on this idea, this work aimed to analyze the vision of high school students on this topic in a public school of Paraíba, Brazil. To that end, we developed and implemented a structured questionnaire for students in 1st, 2nd and 3rd high school levels, also seeking to check the interference of alternative conceptions about Microbiology in the learning process. Results allowed us to realize that a lot of students have prior knowledge about microorganisms, however, some inconsistencies were presented regarding the many activities in which these microscopic beings may be involved, as well the various roles they can play. It is considered that the prior knowledge of students must be redeemed during the approach of microbiology in order to avoid the persistence of misconceptions and promote a more contextualized and meaningful learning of the subject.