Conceptual Change Research and the Teaching of Science

In this paper, I will try to define the conceptual change approach to the learning of science, as it has been developed over the years, on the basis of cognitive/developmental research. An effort will be made to differentiate this approach from the naive empiricism adopted by many science educators as well as from the Piagetian framework. It will be argued that the conceptual change approach can explain the phenomena observed in the acquisition of science concepts better than other approaches. At the end of the paper implications of this approach for teaching of science will be drawn.