Abstract

The research reported in this paper is informed by what might called a contructivist epistemology, because the cognitive approach it adopts builds on the intuitive ideas which pupils already have. Based on previous research we were obliged to revise prelimary versions of a teaching strategy, when these had been tried out in the classroom. The strategy, like other simular strategies (Driver and Oldham, 1985; Hasweh, 1986), pupils' intuitive ideal of attention to the elicitation and restructuring of their reflections upon the paradoxes thus generated. However, such a strategy does not simply lead to a spontaneous development of science in which concepts were to be introduced.