Radical constructivists advocate discovery-based pedagogical regimes that enable students to incrementally and continuously adapt their cognitive structures to the instrumented cultural environment. Some sociocultural theorists, however, maintain that learning implies discontinuity in conceptual development, because novices must appropriate expert…

Documents the patterns of coherence and persistence in energy conceptions. Describes the derivation of the Interview Vee technique and the procedure for putting an interview on the Vee. Discusses the production of Vee maps to help understand childrens' learning of concepts. (CW)