A naturalistic small-scale study was carried out, involving a class from a senior high school in Spain over two years. The students were requested on two occasions to write an essay about chemical change. The essays were subjected to text analysis techniques. Four conceptual profiles were identified: the interactive, the meccano, the kitchen, and the incoherent. The development of these profiles is reported and the implications of our research for the process of teaching the concept of chemical change are given.
<span>A partir de las recientes aportaciones derivadas de la filosofía de la ciencia se discute el sentido de la actividad científica, reconociendo que la posibilidad de hacer preguntas es una de sus principales competencias. De lo anterior y utilizando la caracterización de Toulmin sobre los problemas y los conceptos se propone una manera de evaluar las competencias de pensamiento científico a través de un instrumento ad hoc identificado como diagrama heurístico.</span>
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