Los modelos de la ciencia para explicar la visión y el color : las complejidades asociadas a su aprendizaje

The conceptions about sight and the perception of colour were studied in compulsory and non cumpulsory secondary school education with students in their last year of studies (14-15 and 17-18 years old). It was also done with potencial natural science teachers. The exam consisted of multiple choice answers and the results were analysed taking into account the explicative model chosen with higher probability and the ontologic, conceptual and epistemic principles (and ways of reasoning associated) that underlie in the shared knowledge. In this practically semi-experimental study, a factorial design is implemented and this allows for the study of the influence of the educational level and content (independent variables) on the type of conception used with more probabilities (independent variable). It was found that although the tendency to use intuitive ideas diminishes as the academic level increases, both students and potencial teachers end up explaining the perceptive phenomena in analogical terms: based on the everyday knowledge. So traditional teaching does not favour a change in the way knowledge is gained by students from intuitive to coherent knowledge with science. For this reason, this article concludes with the idea of presenting a didactic strategy that favours learning science through an ontological, epistemic and conceptual change in the way of interpreting and explaining these phenomena. The most relevant characteristics in the methodology of the designed teaching are described.