Abstract

CHAMON, Edna Maria Querido de Oliveira. Social representation of research by phd students en science. Estud. pesqui. psicol. [online]. 2006, vol.6, n.2, pp. 21-33. ISSN 1808-4281.

In this paper we propose to analyze the social representation of the research by the PhD students developing a dissertation in exact sciences. To identify the structure of social representation of research, we organized a questionnaire with questions based on a Likert scale. The questionnaire was proposed to 144 PhD students, from several areas of exact science. A factor analysis showed five main dimensions for the social representation: 1) student professional project; 2) research ideal model; 3) problem solving; 4) research methodology; 5) opposition between theory and practice or, equivalently, between knowledge and labor. Results show a clear opposition between theoretical and applied research in terms of main goals, problems, and means. This separation suggests an anchorage on thinking categories dispersed in the public in general.

Keywords : Social representation; PhD students; research representation.

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