The motivations and memories of Natural Sciences undergraduate students in IFRS – Campus Porto Alegre

Abstract

This work presents the results of the study entitled “Profile, memories and identities in the professions of the Chemistry and Sciences area”, whose goal was to understand professional identities that emerge from that field of studies and from the professional activity. The scope presented here regards the memories from Basic Education of undergraduate students and the motivations behind their choice for the Natural Sciences Graduation: Biology and Chemistry, at Instituto Federal do Rio Grande do Sul - Campus Porto Alegre. It’s a qualitative research, a case study, having a questionnaire as its data collection instrument, which was sent through an electronic form to the participants. The results allowed us to describe the profile of the undergraduate students and indicated the importance of their experiences with the disciplines throughout their school education, reinforcing the influence of teachers they’ve had in their lives over their professional choices. It was identified that the obstacles they have lived during basic education, such as the lack of teachers or laboratory structures, have not caused disappointment on the students, but, on the contrary, have motivated them to act as teachers, in order to improve the quality of teaching in this knowledge area. The results allowed the development of a teaching project to contribute to the students’ permanence and success strategies.