Neuroscience and Education: the role of emotion in the acceptance of scientific explanations and the influence of emotional factors in the acceptance of ontology-based entities/concepts of Modern Physics.

• Grant number: 11/20172-5
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: August 01, 2012
• End date: July 31, 2014
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Education - Educational Teaching and Learning
• Principal Investigator: Sonia Maria Vanzella Castellar
• Grantee: José Guilherme de Oliveira Brockington
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Educação (FE). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 08/10470-6 - Curricular innovation in physics: didactical transposition of the modern theories and the survival of knowledge, AP.TEM

Abstract

In the last few years, the interest on the understanding of how the brain and mind work grew up plentifully. Neuroscience, an inherently multidisciplinary scientific field, was able to provide a new understanding of several cognitive processes and neural properties that support language, arithmetic understanding, performing calculations and so on. Such advances are still poorly known and, consequently, little used by researchers in Education.During the doctorate we were able to establish an effective dialogue between the Education and Cognitive Neuroscience. In our research, we chose to investigate an important issue: the cognitive conflict and persistence of misconceptions in Physics. Collecting the emotional responses through psychophysiological variables, we were able to advance the understanding of the role of emotions in decision-making of students in traditional tests used to identify misconceptions, revealing the possible influence of emotional factors in the persistence of these conceptions. We obtained excellent results, leading to the possibility of further understanding on the learning process of scientific content and, more than that, allowing us to advance the understanding on the issues related to strategies of conceptual change through cognitive conflict.Therefore, the main aim of this postdoctoral project is precisely to allow us to move forward this research by investigating the role of emotion in the acceptance of entities/ concepts arising from Modern Physics, as well as advancing the work we have done but now focused on other areas of scientific knowledge, such as Biology, Mathematics and Chemistry. The idea is to investigate the existence of emotional connections with the scientific knowledge and strengthen the dialogue between Neuroscience and Education, establishing a new approach to research in Science Education by opening new possibilities for understanding of the teaching and learning process.