Pre and post-pandemic perception of science: a case study uponscientific communication in secondary educationdidactics ; Percepción de la ciencia pre y post-pandemia: un estudio de caso sobre la comunicación científica en la didáctica de la Educación Secundaria ; Percepção da ciência pré e pós-pandemia: um estudo de caso sobre a comunicação científica na didática no ensino secundário

Social perception of science is a multi-faceted concept that helps to understand the evolving relations between the knowledge ecosystem and the public opinions and views on it. Science communication is a key aspect of science perception as a flow of information from science, research and innovation professionals to civil society that helps to shapeits conceptions/opinions. This work is framed into a science outreach activity, in which scientists directly interacted with secondary educational centres, to analyse the effect of scientific communication as a didactic methodology. Since the COVID-19 pandemic hit, we hypothesised that this could have affected these students’ perception of science. We used grouped-longitudinalquantitative methodology to address this hypothesis and evaluatedthe changes in perception of science through a survey scored twice; firstly, after a scientific communication (pre-pandemic) and secondly, after students returned to classes (post-pandemic). Results showed COVID-19 pandemic has positively influenced the interest in science in society. Interestingly, students declared a loss of confidence in scientific integrity due to a lack of transparency of the scientific news in post-pandemic surveys. These results suggest the need to have access to clear and scientifically validated information to increase the positive social perception of this stratum of society. ; A percepção social da ciência é um conceito multifacetado que ajuda a compreender as relações em evolução entre o ecossistema do conhecimento e as opiniões e pontos de vista públicos/cidadãos sobre ele. A comunicação científica, um aspecto chave, consiste num fluxo de informação dos profissionais da ciência, investigação e inovação para a sociedade civil, contribuindo para moldar as suas conceções/opiniões. No âmbito de uma atividade de divulgação entre cientistas e centros educacionais do ensino secundário, analisamos o efeito da comunicação científica como metodologia didática. Hipotetizamos qual seria o efeito da pandemia na ...