Science Teacher Training: Description and analysis of possible relationships between the learning conceptions of professors and university students

Abstract

Educational changes require not only curricular changes, but also teachers' reflections on their own implicit conceptions about teaching and learning, as they determine their relationship to knowledge and their practice. This paper provides a characterization and comparison of implicit conceptions of teachers and science teaching students. A descriptive study of the variable conceptions of learning was carried out with a non-random stratified sample of 167 individuals from the National University of Mar del Plata, Argentina. Univariate descriptive analyses were performed and two multivariate statistical methods were combined: the factorial analysis of multiple correspondences and K-means method. The data shows that each individual does not maintain a single underlying theory about learning, with different simultaneous views coexisting, depending on the context.