Conceptual change instruction recognizes that students bring personal, or naive, conceptions to the classroom, which they use to explain their world, interpret situations, and create meaning (Driver et al. 2007). But what happens when students' personal conceptions are inconsistent with experts' views of scientific knowledge? Even after direct…

Students' understanding of science develops through everyday experiences. As a result, they come to the science classroom with their own notions of how the world works. As teachers, we often must help students overcome their prior naive notions and move them toward a more scientific understanding. This process, known as conceptual change, is…