Development of light concept by high school students
light concept, concept development, historical-cultural theory and physics teaching
Assuming that one of the functions of the school is to teach the systematized knowledge produced by humanity t the younger generations, and given the fact that students of basic education present learning difficulties of the concept of light, we seek to understand the developing process of light concept by second year of high school students and thus contribute to concept teaching. For this, we elaborated a didactic sequence, guided by the Vigotskian-based historical-cultural theory, using a contextual approach, jointly experimental, historical and mathematical, aiming at the teaching of concepts. The data collection instruments were class and discussion filming, exercise and individual assessment responses, as well as diary notes. In collected data we sought elements that indicate evidence of internalization of concepts related to our theme, expressed in students language (verbal and written), throughout the process, which, in turn, allowed us to analyze how students developed the concept of light. The results show that: 1) in relation to reflection, students developed predominantly through perception, related to experimentation (linked to a problematization) and the fact that reflection is a phenomenon present in students' daily lives; 2) there was a plurality of ways to develop the concepts related to interference, leading us to reflect on new researches that investigate, more deeply, the plurality of ways of internalization and development of this aspect of the concept of light; 3) in relation to the photoelectric effect, the development of concepts, mainly duality, was more related to the historical discussions that occurred throughout the teaching process, involving the corpuscular and wave models in the explanation of the phenomena. We can thus say that it was possible to teach a concept of light accessible to high school students, present in everyday life and involving concepts of TQ, as the concept of duality.