Acceso usuarios
Agustín Mauro, Alfonso Nicolás Venturelli
Se pretende colaborar desde la filosofía de la ciencia en la evaluación del alcance de la neurociencia educacional, un área de investigación que busca utilizar modelos y metodologías de las neurociencias para mejorar prácticas educativas. Para esto, se recaban, ordenan y jerarquizan los principales debates y argumentos en relación al tema junto con ejemplos ilustrativos extraídos de las investigaciones empíricas. Luego de circunscribir el área de investigación, se presentan algunas de las principales contribuciones: un nuevo nivel de evidencia y la disponibilidad de modelos sobre procesos cognitivos, del aprendizaje y del desarrollo. Seguidamente, se presentan algunos de los límites de la neurociencia educacional:
límites metodológicos y límites vinculados al tipo de datos recabados. Se concluye que las investigaciones neurocientíficas por sí solas no pueden ofrecer recomendaciones a las prácticas educativas y que además deben incluir conocimientos y necesidades de docentes para aumentar su relevancia en contextos áulicos.
Educational neuroscience is part of the recent proliferation of subdisciplines spawned by the enormous growth of neuroscience as well as the specific combination of existing disciplines with neuroscientific methods and approaches. Researchers in educational neuroscience claim that the integration of neurocognitive research with other educational research can do much to improve teaching practices. The global intent of the article is to collaborate from an epistemology of neuroscience standpoint to the assessment of the scope of the contribution of cognitive neuroscience in relevant topics in education, nonetheless avoiding the well-known fears derived from threats based on medicalization and reductionism arguments, especially widespread in the local context. In this sense, the intended contribution is ultimately to facilitate the processes of exchange and collaboration between disparate disciplines. To this effect, the main debates and arguments, as rooted on epistemic grounds, in relation to the subject are identified, rearranged, and pondered, along with illustrative examples drawn from empirical research. Some preliminary considerations are first put forth regarding how the notion of neuroscience is used in the literature, how its area of influence is delimited, and how the intended merits to education are generally conceived: The focus is thus restricted to cognitive neuroscience, an area mainly characterized by the use of neuroimaging techniques in human subjects and in controlled laboratory settings. Some of the main contributions of a neuroscientific approach to educational issues are then presented, in line with the way neuroscientists themselves tend to highlight them. The contribution of a new source of evidence and an additional level of analysis is firstly put forth, with different associated epistemic benefits, particularly complementing results obtained from behavioral studies. Next, the availability of novel models, ordered according to the kind of phenomenon under study, is discussed: Basic cognitive processes, and learning and developmental processes. Finally, the possibility of directly carrying out interventions and predictions aimed at the classroom is presented, and a more cautious consideration is recommended. Some of the main limits, conceived as constraints inherent to neuroscience’s eminently experimental approach, are next highlighted: Methodological limits, on the one hand, and limits of the type of collected data, on the other, are distinguished. It is concluded that neuroscientific research alone cannot offer recommendations for educational practices and that they must also include teachers’ knowledge and needs to increase their relevance in classroom contexts.
