The Understanding of the Physics of Ionizing Radiation through Text Reading

We present the results of a study that investigated high school students’ understanding of the Physics of Ionizing Radiation through the reading of popular science texts. The students’ reading habits were analyzed, and their prior knowledge about radiation and radioactivity was identified, as well as the meanings produced during a didactic intervention. This is a qualitative study, developed through the implementation of a Teaching Unit consisting of ten lessons, which involved text reading, the application of open-ended questionnaires, and discourse-based analysis of the responses. The theoretical framework is grounded in Discourse Analysis, which guided the interpretation of the meanings produced by the students. The results indicate a low level of reading practice, especially of scientific texts, but show that the activity contributed to fostering reading, textual interpretation, and the understanding of topics related to ionizing radiation.