understandings may become progressively reconstructed as a result. This constructivist
view is the dominant paradigm of learning in science (Driver 1989,
Hewson and Hewson 1992, Carey and Smith 1993, Tao and Gunstone 1999)
and underpins most of the current research in this area. One of the important
findings of this research is that the students’ existing ideas and beliefs may be
significantly different from accepted scientific viewpoints, in which case they are
often referred to as ‘alternative conceptions’.