New Perspectives in Science Education

The need to prioritize the development of scientific competences is a globally recognized point, since it is important for any citizen to have the capacity to integrate in a context markedly influenced by science and technology. However, progress in this objective is very slow, especially in the case of Latin American countries. This situation reaches the profiles of the students who come to university education and this fact generates a critical situation, in particular for the training of new scientists, for which the development of their skills for scientific practice is essential. These skills require the coordination of different higher order cognitive skills that include heuristic processes, inductive and deductive reasoning, mainly. In the case of experimental sciences, such as chemistry, laboratory experiences constitute a propitious space for the development of these abilities in students. In that sense, Gowin's V diagram is a heuristic resource, which is oriented towards the nature of knowledge, as well as that of learning, which allows it to be used both as an analysis strategy in the construction of scientific knowledge, as in its reconstruction or learning. The shape of the diagram makes it possible to make explicit the relationships that exist between the conceptual aspects and the methodological procedures, based on questions that integrate theoretical aspects with empirical or observational aspects. This paper reports the implementation of a strategy that uses the Gowin’s V diagram in a Chemistry Laboratory course for first year students of Basic Sciences, in a Peruvian university. The purpose of the study was to determine the effect of the strategy implemented on their scientific practice and metacognitive skills. The results obtained showed a significant level of positive correlation between the variables, proving that the strategy was a predictive variable of the students' metacognition skills.

Keywords: Gowin’s V diagram, metacognition, scientific reasoning, scientific skills.

References:
[1] Pedrinaci, E. (coord.), Caamaño, A., Cañal, P., y Pro, A. (2012): 11 Ideas Clave: El desarrollo de la competencia científica. Barcelona: Grao
[2] Novak y Gowin (2004): Aprendiendo a aprender, Barcelona, Martínez Roca
[3] Guardian, B y Ballester, A (2011). UVE de Gowin instrumento metacognitivo para un aprendizaje significativo basado en competencias. IN. Revista Electrònica d’Investigació i Innovació Educativa i Socioeducativa, v3, n.1, 51-62.