PRÁTICAS ESCOLARES DE FÍSICA MODERNA E CONTEMPORÂNEA NO ENSINO MÉDIO: UM ESTUDO DE DISSERTAÇÕES E TESES BRASILEIRAS (1972-2020)

Modern and Contemporary Physics (MCP) is present in our daily lives through technological apparatuses, newspaper reports, medical examinations, satellite, the internet and many other means and technological resources, being, therefore, a direct contact in our daily life and essential in basic school education, particularly in physics teaching. Thus, this research aims to identify and analyze the dissertations and theses defended in the period between 1972 and 2020 which dealt with pedagogical practices about the teaching of MCP in High School (HS). The work seeks to highlight the innovations and pedagogical practices developed in the selected academic researches and the advances and obstacles faced when approaching MCP in HS, having the following research problem: what are the characteristics and theoretical-pedagogical tendencies of Modern and Contemporary Physics practices proposed in dissertations and theses aimed at Physics Teaching in high school? It is characterized as a state-of-the-art research on Brazilian academic production related to the proposed theme. 405 researches which approached the MCP theme were located from the Bank of Theses and Dissertations from the Documentation Center in Science Education in the School of Education of The University of Campinas (Unicamp). Of these, 162 papers which dealt specifically with the implementation of pedagogical practices in HS were selected. From the reading of the full texts of the 162 researches on pedagogical practices, we classified and analyzed the documents according to the following descriptors of Pedagogical practices, (School years, MCP Themes, MCP Content, Pedagogical Methods and Strategies, Teaching Materials, Theoretical Framework, Pedagogical Model). Among the 162 researches, we have identified that most of them have implemented practices in the 3rd year of HS, with the most covered topics being Quantum Physics and Nuclear Physics and, to a lesser extent, Solid State Physics. In relation to teaching methods and strategies, we identified: lectures, group work and prior knowledge elicitation more frequently. The most used Teaching Resources and Materials were the use of Internet/Computer/Digital Resources, Electronic Presentations,and Questionnaires/Exercises. As for the pedagogical models that supported the practices, the (Socio)Constructivist (44%) and Science-Technology-Society (38%) models prevailed, although we found practices consistent with the Traditional, Rediscover and Technicist models; furthermore, many studies involved two or more pedagogical models in the practices implemented. The results confirm the possibility of inserting MCP theme into HS, also evidencing the variety of theoretical and methodological options for the implementation of practices on the subject.