ABSTRACT
Over the past ten years or so evidence has been produced to indicate that, while students may often show a grasp of the concepts taught in science classes, their interpretations of phenomena which they encounter in everyday life are guided by other beliefs than those presented by teachers (Driver, Guesne and Tiberghien, 1985). It has also been demonstrated that most pupils possess beliefs about areas covered in the science syllabus (such as motion, electricity, evolution, chemical change) before they are taught anything about these topics and that these beliefs are often substantially the same when they leave school (see Pfundt and Duit, 1988). They can also remain after university undergraduate and postgraduate study (Warren, 1971; Peters, 1982).
