Interdisciplinariedad y conceptos nómadas en didáctica de la ciencia: consecuencias para la investigación

Abstract

This paper reflects on the huge expansion of science education research in recent years, at the expense of its increasingly interdisciplinary. The expansion involved the addition of multiple nomad concepts (thesis of conceptual migration), which have extended the traditional disciplinary matrix towards a more and more interdisciplinary one. The data drawn from main science education international congresses allow empirically confirming the thesis of conceptual migration, mainly from psychology and pedagogy. Research on science education should recognize the original research in these areas as a primary source for science education. However, two widely-spread biases within research act against it: the preference to inbreeding self-citation and to neglect the other areas as original sources. Further, Hattie's paradigmatic meta-analysis on visible learning that discriminates the psychological and educational variables according to their impact on learning (thesis of interdisciplinary foundation) is analysed. The conclusions suggest that the new provider disciplines (psychology and pedagogy) should be recognised as necessary foundation for research and teacher training in science education. To this aim, science education research must assume its interdisciplinary, correct its self-referential inbreeding, and funding interdisciplinary concepts in the (psychological or pedagogical) original primary sources, to avoid the risk of 'reinventing the wheel' or deforming the new concepts in science education, and to promote a science education research more coherent with the primary sources and attaining better quality and quantity.