Reports the teaching behaviors of instructors who (1) willfully and (2) under mandate adopted a new earth science syllabus. After a four year time span had elapsed, both groups exhibited similar behaviors. (CP)

Fourteen elementary and middle school teachers from an inservice physics course were found to share a common core of strongly held propositions that formed a coherent, but incorrect and contradictory, model of the sequential flow of electrical current. Theoretical and practical implications of these teachers' beliefs with respect to both…