Abstract

GARRITZ, Andoni; RUEDA, Cristina; ROBLES, César  and  VAZQUEZ-ALONSO, Ángel. Attitudes on Nature of Science and technology by public high school and college's Mexican teachers and students: Iberian-American Evaluation Project on Science, Technology and Society Attitudes. Educ. quím [online]. 2011, vol.22, n.2, pp.141-154. ISSN 0187-893X.

The authors have participated in the Iberian-American Evaluation Project on Science,Technology and Society Attitudes (Spanish acronym, PIEARCST), and have delivered their results (Garritz, Rueda y Robles, 2011) to the Iberian-American States Organization (Spanish acronym, OEI).We have decided to give an extended diffusion to these results by including them in this Journal -now that the celebration of the International Year of Chemistry contemplates a section especially dedicated to attitudes- giving a full description of some of the questions of the Questionnaire of Opinions on Science, Technology and Society (Spanish acronym COCTS by Manassero y Vázquez,1998),critically those in which there is an statistical meaningful difference between students of high school and college or between students and teachers of both levels. The general conclusion is the alarming poorness of beliefs on Science-Technology-Society (STS) issues of the great majority of the participants, revealing a deficient knowledge on the present conception of the Nature of Science and Technology (NoS & T). If these groups, belonging to the highest level of education, show these kinds of results, they cannot be a factor of change that allows Mexican people -surely with more deformed visions on NoS & T- take convenient decisions about public policies on important topics of science and technology for their everyday life. We conclude that it is necessary to actualize and improve high school and university teachers on this theme, and put those contents nearer to teachers and students of basic education. In this way,the objective of science education could be achieved, that is: to develop autonomous persons that use scientific and technological knowledge as a norm, conscious of the impact of those activities on society, trusting in their capacity to face novelties and assuming ethic responsibility for their actions, as individuals, as citizens as well as professionals. We have to realize that to educate people it is necessary to contemplate not only knowledge -to know concepts- but also skills -how to think and to do- and attitudes -to know how to be and live with others. And to evaluate the last mentioned factor in relation to science, technology and society this work is dedicated to.

Keywords : Science-Technology-Society; Nature of Science and Technology; beliefs and attitudes; teachers and students high school and college.