This work, sometimes labelled the 'alternative conceptions movement' was motivated by a series of influential publications on children's ideas in science and their implications for learning (and so for how teaching should be planned to take them into account).
Whilst a range of influential papers could be cited it has been suggested that a number of seminar contributions [13][14][15][16][17] in effect set out the commitments, or 'hard core' of a constructivist research programme into the learning and teaching of science.
[24][25] Such criticisms have done little to stem the influence of the perspective, perhaps because they tend not to refer to the core tenets of constructivism as an approach based on learning theory and research from cognitive science.
Sometimes it is considered important to distinguish fully developed conceptions (i.e., explicit ways of understanding aspects of the natural work that are readily verbalised) from more 'primitive' features of cognition acting at a tacit level, such as the so-called phenomenology primitives.
What research has shown is the prevalence among learners at all levels of alternative ways to thinking about just about all science topics, and a key feature of guidance to teachers is to elicit students' ideas as part of the teaching process.