The use of mind maps in the analysis of the possible domain in the conceptual field of Black Hole

Abstract

This work presents an excerpt from a master's research and aims to analyze the possible evidence of mastery of the conceptual field of Black Hole from the analysis of mental maps and explanatory texts used as a tool to investigate the operational invariants in two steps of a Potentially Meaningful Teaching Units (PMTU). PMTU was implemented in the 1st year of high school at a state public school and had the participation of 22 students. We seek to answer the following research problem: Can the operational invariants mobilized in the construction of mental maps indicate evidence of mastery of the conceptual field of black hole? For the analysis of the results, we selected the mental maps created in steps 2 and 6 of PMTU. We used the Iramuteq program to analyze the similarity of concepts in action, which makes it possible to identify the co-occurrences between the words and their result, bringing indications of the connection between the words and for the analysis of the theorems in action we used the explanatory texts of the maps. In the sequence, the categorization of the operative invariants was made and, finally, considering the results obtained, it was possible to verify that most of the research subjects had significant advances, which indicates a possible domain of the conceptual field of Black Hole.