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This thesis can be described in various terms. It is a translation of Vygotsky's theory of scientific concepts, in reality a theory of development, into a theory of mathematics teaching and learning. It is a theorisation, and development, of connectionist pedagogy in mathematics (a relatively underdeveloped, yet exemplary, amalgam of various reform/progressive /meaningful approaches to teaching). And, it is an investigation of the elements and processes involved in mathematical concept development, and the mediating role which classroom tasks can play. Alongside this, these understandings are embedded within a wider understanding of society, schooling, mathematics and mathematics teaching which help explain the current dominant practice in the classroom, and in doing so add to the understandings already described. In sum, the thesis therefore represents the beginnings of a systematic Marxist perspective of mathematics education which can cohere analysis at the multiple levels of society, schooling, classroom teaching and learning, and individual concept development. As such it is also, as should always be the case with Marxist perspectives, a guide to action for critical mathematics educators. The thesis begins with context, motivation and strategy, an overview of relevant literature, and an explanation of the methodology and methods used within. The relationship between Vygotsky's theory of concept development and connectionist teaching is then outlined and developed. The wider societal perspective follows, with an emphasis on generalised commodity production as the key shaper of schools and classrooms. Both of these themes are then developed in relation to the example of vocational mathematics, both providing evidence of the existence and nature of scientific activity and concepts, and connecting their absence to the obstacles related in the previous section. The thesis continues by exploring a pedagogical development based on Vygotsky's theory, looking at the explicit problematising of generalisation, and analysing classroom dialogue in relation to this. In the other direction, a theoretical development is then made, following an illustration of the pedagogical and theoretical framework through the development of a particular concept. Finally, conclusions are drawn and future work outlined.

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Magister Educationis - MEd (Mathematics and Science Education) / A large percentage of South African learners held inadequate or alternative conceptions that might hinder them from developing a valid understanding of various scientific concepts and generalizations. This study explored the conceptions of Senior Phase learners on magnetism, chemical change of substances and the environment. More explicitly, the study attempted to investigate the influence of the learners" age, language and gender issues on their understanding of these scientific concepts. The study is underpinned by socio-cultural constructivism as espoused by Vygotsky (1978). The research sample comprised 250 Senior Phase learners (grades eight and nine) from secondary schools in the Metro Central District in the Western Cape. The study used the following six research instruments for data collection: Science Achievement Test (SAT), Context Test, Cloze Test, Picture Test, Science Vocabulary Test and an interview schedule. The tests were administered to all the participants while the interview was conducted with six participants.This study was a descriptive research of a survey type and data was collected and analyzed using both quantitative and qualitative methods.The data collected was analyzed quantitatively using the Statistical Package for Sciences (SPSS) in order to obtain descriptive statistics that were used to explore the conceptions of senior phase learners in magnetism, chemical change substances and the environment in the Metro Central district while data from the tape recorder and notes taken during the interview, were analyzed qualitatively.

This research report attempts to establish the cognitive consequences of the disruption of schooling. Specifically the report investigates Vygotsky and Luna’s claim that formal schooling necessarily produces scientific concepts in learners, by examining the performance of learners who had been subjected to disrupted schooling. On the basis of empirical research conducted, the report challenges Vygotsky and Luria's claim about the cognitive consequences of schooling.

Nesta pesquisa investigamos em um grupo de estudantes do curso de Química a construção do raciocínio através da argumentação dos alunos, suas estruturas cognitivas e articulações na resolução de problemas de uma atividade prática de Química Analítica Qualitativa, mais especificamente pesquisa de cátions e ânions numa marcha analítica. Após a transcrição das falas registradas em vídeo, analisamos a argumentação e o gênero do discurso dos estudantes e verificamos a importância da estruturação do pensamento reversível (ou ainda chamado de mobilidade retroativa) para a formação do Químico, bem como um raciocínio lógico-formal. Conseqüentemente, procuramos avaliar as razões pelas quais os alunos não estabelecem uma aproximação entre a teoria e a experimentação, além da deficiência na argumentação a respeito dos conceitos teóricos e os fenômenos ocorridos nesta prática de laboratório, o que demonstra pouca ou nenhuma compreensão destes conceitos. Os resultados obtidos apontam que as atividades práticas em Química Analítica Qualitativa revelam-se fundamentais para que o aluno possa apreciar a lógica envolvida na descoberta do conhecimento pela interação com o fenômeno e não meramente por uma repetição mecânica de procedimentos experimentais, como normalmente se verifica. A postura adotada pelo professor em muito contribuirá para o sucesso ou não desse objetivo, pois deve haver na sala de aula uma interação dialética e dialógica em toda a prática didática e experimental da disciplina. / In the present research it was investigated the formation of the thought throughout the students argumentations in a chemistry course, its cognitive structures and articulations in solving problems in a practical activity of qualitative analytical chemistry, more specifically, the study of cations and anions in an analytic march. After the video talk transcription, it was analyzed the argumentation and the sort of the speech and it was verified the importance of the reversible thought structuring (also called retroactive mobility) for a Chemist formation, as well as a formal logical reasoning. Consequently, we looked forward to evaluate the rezones why students can not link the theory and the experimentation, more over the deficiency in argumentation about the theoretical concepts and the phenomenal shown in the laboratory practice, what shows few or no comprehension of those concepts. The results reveal that it is fundamental the use of practical activities in Qualitative Analytical Chemistry. With this experience the students can appreciate the logic involved in the discovery of the knowledge through the interaction with the phenomenon and not only for a mechanical repetition of experimental procedures, as the daily routine shows. The adopted posture for the teacher will deeply contribute for the success or not of this goal, therefore, it must have in class a dialectic interaction and dialogic in all didactic practice and experimental of the subject.

Initial teacher education is an area of weakness within the Chilean education system. Yet it is highlighted as a crucial aspect of educational success. Success in educational improvement depends mainly on the teachers (because they enact a reform by putting it into practice), and teacher thinking is likely to influence teacher decision-making. How teacher conceptions and practice change, and how to facilitate this change, was the focus of this study. It explored to what extent peer assessment could facilitate change in pre-service science teachers’ conceptions and practices regarding conceptual explanations in science teaching.In a quasi-experimental design, a ten-session peer assessment intervention was carried out with thirty seven pre-service science teachers in three Chilean universities, each with an experimental and control group. The intervention sought to develop changes in teachers’ conceptions about the quality of explanations and in their skill of explaining scientific concepts. Teachers' thoughts were obtained through a peer assessment questionnaire, feedback sessions, focus groups and interviews. The quality of their explanations was measured at pre, post and follow-up in their eventual first job via video-recorded microteaching episodes using observational analysis. Inter-rater reliability was calculated on 5% of all qualitative data and all the videos were rated by two researchers in a blind process. Qualitative analysis indicated how teachers transformed their conceptions about the quality of explanations from general pedagogical knowledge into pedagogical content knowledge. A quantitative instrument was created to evaluate student teachers’ explanations in practice. Its reliability enables the assessment the skill of explaining based on ten elements (Cronbach’s alpha=.77). Results showed pre-service teachers significantly improved their explanations of scientific concepts in some practical aspects, although not all of them were transferred into real teaching contexts. The changes in student teachers’ conceptions and practice were analysed to indicate how the process occurred, to what extent peer assessment had a role on it, and which elements facilitated or made difficult the transference of the skill of explaining into real teaching. These results indicated that peer assessment can play a noteworthy role in teacher education to develop skills. There are implications for policy and practice in this study, not only for teacher education but also for in-service teacher professional development, not only for Chile but also for other countries.

MESQUITA, Kelcilene Vírgilio Silva de. Formação conceitual à luz das teorias de Vygotsky e Nelson. 2008. 119f. – Dissertação (Mestrado) – Universidade Federal do Ceará, Departamento de Letras Vernáculas, Programa de Pós-graduação em Linguística, Fortaleza (CE), 2008. / Submitted by Márcia Araújo (marcia_m_bezerra@yahoo.com.br) on 2014-08-21T12:25:29Z No. of bitstreams: 1 2008_dis_kvsmesquita.pdf: 1822557 bytes, checksum: 6d26e6b2ab80881086761e62ab35cc2e (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Márcia Araújo(marcia_m_bezerra@yahoo.com.br) on 2014-08-21T14:50:29Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 2008_dis_kvsmesquita.pdf: 1822557 bytes, checksum: 6d26e6b2ab80881086761e62ab35cc2e (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2014-08-21T14:50:29Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 2008_dis_kvsmesquita.pdf: 1822557 bytes, checksum: 6d26e6b2ab80881086761e62ab35cc2e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008 / Our basic assumption for this work is that the abilities to appraise and to categorize are closely related, leading us to the conclusion that they are part of a single process: that of knowledge organization. In this paper, we will discuss specifically some topics involving knowledge organization as far as concept formation is concerned, searching to understand its nature. For this purpose, we have used as theoretical background the works on concept formation by Vygotsky ([1934] 2000) and Nelson (1998; 1986). We believe that Nelson’s views on young children cognitive processing, centered on the action context and on the children’s daily experiences can provide a more significant contribution for an extended vision of the nature of the process of concept formation than the ideas presented by Vygotsky who, in spite of stressing the importance of the context in concept formation, carried out his experiments based on artificial concepts. To check if the concepts become more abstract as time goes by or if they show to be limited to the individual’s context, connected to their memory (thus contextualized), we carry out a study with Elementary, Junior High and High School students as subjects, whose main purpose was to understand the nature of the participants’ concepts. The students were asked to define the terms “plant” and “animal” and took part in two classification activities using a set of cards, adapted from Panofsky, John-Steiner and Blackwell (1996), which consisted of twenty and one (21) pictures (07 belonging to the “plant” category and 14 to the “animal” category). From the analysis of the definitions obtained and of the justifications for grouping the items into categories, we could observe that there is not a single, exclusive base for the participants’ conceptualizations, that is, none of the categories has shown to be predominant. On the contrary, the category concepts are formed from internalized pieces of information about the world, no matter if these pieces of information are of a daily or of a more formal nature. / Neste trabalho partimos da premissa de que as habilidades de conceituar e de categorizar estão intimamente relacionadas, levando-nos a concluir que elas fazem parte de um único processo: o de organização do conhecimento. Especificamente, abordaremos questões concernentes à organização do conhecimento no tocante à formação de conceitos buscando compreender a sua natureza. Para isso, utilizamos como base teórica os trabalhos sobre formação de conceitos de Vygotsky ([1934] 2000) e de Nelson (1998; 1986). Defendemos que a proposta de Nelson sobre o processamento cognitivo de crianças jovens, centrada no contexto de ação, nas experiências cotidianas das crianças, pode contribuir para uma visão mais ampliada da natureza do processo de formação de conceitos que a visão apresentada por Vygotsky que, mesmo defendendo a importância do contexto na formação dos conceitos, realizou seus experimentos utilizando-se de conceitos artificiais. Para verificarmos se os conceitos com o passar do tempo vão se tornando mais abstratos ou se, ainda, mostram-se, presos ao contexto do indivíduo, ligados à memória de eventos (contextualizado), realizamos uma pesquisa com alunos do Ensino Fundamental e do Ensino Médio com o objetivo de compreender a natureza dos conceitos dos participantes. A tarefa experimental consistiu de uma atividade de definição para os termos planta e animal e duas atividades de classificação usando um conjunto de cartões, adaptado de Panofsky, John-Steiner e Blackwell (1996) que constou de vinte e uma (21) figuras (07 da categoria plantas e 14 da categoria animais). Através da análise das definições e justificativas para os agrupamentos de itens em categorias, pudemos verificar que não há uma única e exclusiva base para as conceitualizações dos participantes, ou seja, não há predominância de uma ou de outra categoria, e sim que seus conceitos são formados a partir de pedaços de informações internalizadas sobre o mundo quer sejam cotidianas quer sejam mais formais.

Nesta pesquisa investigamos em um grupo de estudantes do curso de Química a construção do raciocínio através da argumentação dos alunos, suas estruturas cognitivas e articulações na resolução de problemas de uma atividade prática de Química Analítica Qualitativa, mais especificamente pesquisa de cátions e ânions numa marcha analítica. Após a transcrição das falas registradas em vídeo, analisamos a argumentação e o gênero do discurso dos estudantes e verificamos a importância da estruturação do pensamento reversível (ou ainda chamado de mobilidade retroativa) para a formação do Químico, bem como um raciocínio lógico-formal. Conseqüentemente, procuramos avaliar as razões pelas quais os alunos não estabelecem uma aproximação entre a teoria e a experimentação, além da deficiência na argumentação a respeito dos conceitos teóricos e os fenômenos ocorridos nesta prática de laboratório, o que demonstra pouca ou nenhuma compreensão destes conceitos. Os resultados obtidos apontam que as atividades práticas em Química Analítica Qualitativa revelam-se fundamentais para que o aluno possa apreciar a lógica envolvida na descoberta do conhecimento pela interação com o fenômeno e não meramente por uma repetição mecânica de procedimentos experimentais, como normalmente se verifica. A postura adotada pelo professor em muito contribuirá para o sucesso ou não desse objetivo, pois deve haver na sala de aula uma interação dialética e dialógica em toda a prática didática e experimental da disciplina. / In the present research it was investigated the formation of the thought throughout the students argumentations in a chemistry course, its cognitive structures and articulations in solving problems in a practical activity of qualitative analytical chemistry, more specifically, the study of cations and anions in an analytic march. After the video talk transcription, it was analyzed the argumentation and the sort of the speech and it was verified the importance of the reversible thought structuring (also called retroactive mobility) for a Chemist formation, as well as a formal logical reasoning. Consequently, we looked forward to evaluate the rezones why students can not link the theory and the experimentation, more over the deficiency in argumentation about the theoretical concepts and the phenomenal shown in the laboratory practice, what shows few or no comprehension of those concepts. The results reveal that it is fundamental the use of practical activities in Qualitative Analytical Chemistry. With this experience the students can appreciate the logic involved in the discovery of the knowledge through the interaction with the phenomenon and not only for a mechanical repetition of experimental procedures, as the daily routine shows. The adopted posture for the teacher will deeply contribute for the success or not of this goal, therefore, it must have in class a dialectic interaction and dialogic in all didactic practice and experimental of the subject.