ABSTRACT
Much research on the role of students' preinstructional conceptual frameworks in learning science has been carried out during the past 10 to 15 years. This research reveals a disappointing situation, namely that science instruction very often has rather limited success, that attempts to guide students from their preinstructional conceptual frameworks to those of science very often fail—this is true worldwide. This sad situation is one of the main challenges to science education today. The problems revealed in the many studies available are basically the same in rather different school systems. This inevitably leads to the conclusion that the problems are inherent in the “nature” of science knowledge and the (traditional) way science is taught worldwide. My position is that the problems caused by the specific nature of science knowledge can only be addressed implicitly in science instruction. We cannot change the nature of science. I therefore, consider that learning science is a difficult task for students and will be a difficult and demanding one in the future. But the many research results available and the many new lines of thought about science instruction initiated by the “sad” situation referred to provide a profound basis for changes in science instruction. They provide the key to an adequate consideration of the problems of learning science inherent in the nature of science knowledge, and hence to make science instruction more fruitful and pleasing for students as well as for teachers.
