Use of analogies in science education, a systematic mapping study

TL;DR

This systematic mapping study reviews two decades of research on analogies in science education, analyzing models, strategies, methodologies, and effectiveness assessments to understand their role in enhancing learning.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive synthesis of research methodologies, models, and evaluation techniques used in studying analogies as a didactic tool in science teaching.

Findings

Research methods are both quantitative and qualitative.

Resources include images, illustrations, and audiovisual aids.

Effectiveness is often evaluated through tests and student-created analogies.

Abstract

This systematic mapping study consisted of tracking the scientific literature that addresses the issue of analogies as a didactic strategy in science teaching. An analogy can be understood as comparing an existing knowledge with a new knowledge to achieve a better understanding of the new knowledge as a result of the comparison of similarities; or in other words, use students' own concepts to introduce new concepts using comparisons between the two. The purpose of this study was to identify, analyze, synthesize and evaluate research works that touched on this topic, with this, to have knowledge about the models of uses of analogies, most used didactic strategies, research methodologies in this field and how to evaluate the learning effectiveness of working with analogies. The methodology that was used is the systematic mapping study; Five questions were posed that guided the information tracking process. Later, the electronic documents in English for the last twenty years were traced in five databases related to the educational field. Finally, it is concluded by responding to the purpose of the study where it is evident that, broadly speaking, the research methodologies in this field are quantitative as well as qualitative, to implement analogies, resources such as images, illustrations, textual indications and audiovisual aids are used, it is usually evaluated the effectiveness of using analogies with multiple choice tests, oral tests of creating analogies by students.