THE METAPHOR OF COMMUNICATION IN GENETIC INFORMATION CONCEPTUAL COMPREHENSION: AN INVESTIGATION IN INITIAL SCIENCE AND BIOLOGY TEACHER EDUCATION

Abstract

In the present context of technological sophistication, Science Education might train citizens to be able to participate in individual and collective decision making. The concept of genetic information is relevant for the comprehension of socioenvironmental problems, such as genetic modified organisms and genic therapy, for example. Considering the possibility of this concept to provoke misconceptions by metaphor in learning, we aimed describing which are the conceptions of genetic information from Biology teachers in training and how these conceptions changed through scientific and philosophical conversation sessions. We collected data using questionnaires, group interviews and individual representations. We identified that teachers in training comprehended genetic information in metaphorical terms, moved forward to a complete rejection of the metaphor and reached a balancing point in the end, exhibiting comprehensions compatible with the proposed scientific concept, although some showed a combination of different conceptual profiles.