Avaliação dos Livros Didáticos de Química e as Concepções de Alunos de Ensino Médio e Superior Sobre o Conteúdo dos Fenômenos Espontâneos

Abstract

Thermodynamics as an experimental branch of applied science and may become an important tool in the teaching and learning process, since, through this character can apply for the student to facilitate visualization of the concepts studied in class. This study aimed to analyze and evaluate the approach of content "Spontaneous Processes" in textbooks of Chemistry, currently recommended by the Ministry of Education through Textbooks Guide. An analysis of the textbooks currently recommended by the Ministry of Education with the goal of understanding how content "Spontaneous Processes" was held was approached and was in compliance with the guidelines contained in legal documents MEC. Through questionnaires with objective and subjective questions were presenting everyday phenomena analyzed the conceptions of students in regular and vocational high school on spontaneous phenomena, as well as newly admitted to the Bachelor's Degree in Chemistry from the cities of Fortaleza and Itapipoca students. Following the standards of the National Textbook Program of the five books currently recommended only one was deemed appropriate for the spontaneous processes, as this addresses entropy making their connection with the Second Law of Thermodynamics and through everyday examples. A differential with other books has been analyzed that this material also addresses another thermodynamic function that describes the spontaneous processes under conditions routinely found in most laboratories, i.e. constant temperature and pressure, which is the Gibbs energy. It was evident that students, through common sense, can quite easily describe a process as spontaneous or not. However, when asked which factor would determine whether a given phenomenon occurs spontaneously (Gibbs energy), misunderstandings and confusion are evident. This fact can be associated with the gap now left by the books indicated and used in schools investigated in this work. It is further proposed, using these results suggest that content in textbooks and an approach through the visualization and understanding of everyday phenomena as the MEC guidelines.