The conceptualisation of practical work in science education: Data from a systematic literature review

Abstract

Practical work in science education has been considered an essential methodology in the daily practice of science teachers, particularly from the 1960s to the present day. For this paradigm contributes the many advantages attributed to it. However, in order to better understand the relevance of practical work in science education, it is important to discover the vision that teachers have about the dynamics of this methodology. Thus, with the purpose of identifying the current state-of-the-art on the conceptualisation of practical work, as perceived and assumed by researchers and science teachers in their teaching practice, a systematic literature review was conducted in four databases and an aggregator. A total of 53 international scientific publications were identified. The inclusion criteria for the corpus were: complete documents available in open access, peerreviewed studies, studies developed in/about science teaching in pre-university teaching schools, and publications written in English. The exclusion criteria were designed to remove from the data collection publications resulting from systematic literature reviews, final degree reports, master’s dissertations and also publications prior to 2011. The analysis of the corpus allowed the distribution of the elements considered as structuring of the practical work concept into eight categories, with the most representative one integrating the concept of "hands-on skills", which assumes a direct interaction with equipment or materials, individually or in small groups, including observation and/or manipulation.