Concepts, misconceptions and alternative conceptions: changing perspectives in science education

Introduction Since the early 1970s there has emerged, on a world-wide basis, a strong interest in research into content-and context-dependent learning in science. Starting with individual papers e.g. Doran (1972), the pace has quickened through the production of theses e.g. Driver (1973), the organisation of conferences e.g. Archenhold et al. (1980) and Sutton and West (1982), to the appearance of books e.g. Driver (1983). However, the field shows signs of still being, using Kuhn’s (1970) terminology, in a pre-paradigmatic phase. There is no general agreement on the aims of enquiry, the methods to be used, criteria for appraising data, the use to be made of the outcomes. For any coherence to appear in the field (Gilbert and Swift 1982) some semantic knots will have to be untied. One of these concerns the epistemological and ontological status of the descriptors used for the outcomes of such studies. They are severally referred to as ‘misconceptions’ e.g. Helm (1980), ‘preconceptions’ (e.g. Novak 1977), ‘alternative conceptions’ (Driver and Easley 1978) ‘children’s science’ (Gilbert et al. 1982).