ABSTRACT
This problem has been occasionally raised. For example Driver, Guesne and
Tiberghien (1985) argue, on the basis of an extensive review of ‘alternative conceptions’ research, that
one of the problems involved in investigating children’s ideas is devising ways of probing thinking which enables [sic] us to sort out the status of the responses we obtain; distinguish between these ideas which play a significant part in the thinking of individual or group and these which are generated in an ad hoc way in response to social pressure to produce an answer in an interview or test situation.
