Atividades experimentais no ensino de física: diferentes enfoques, diferentes finalidades

in this paper were analysed the recent publications about the investigations on experimentation as a strategy of physics teaching, with the objective of improving the understanding about the different possibilities and tendencies of these activities with an eye to subsidise the teachers and researchers activities at the high school level. the data analysis were based on the articles published between 1992 and 2001 in the revista brasileira de ensino de física (sbf), in its annex física na escola and also in the caderno catarinense de ensino de física (ufsc). the themes and some methodological aspects related with the proposals of experiments, as the applied mathematical emphasis, the intensity of directivity, the employment of new technologies and the relation to the quotidian were investigated. the results obtained show that the experimentation remain been of great interest of researchers, presenting this strategy a wide range of approaches and objectives to the physics teaching.