f what the learner already knows and understands seems like an obvious way to proceed. The problem comes with the sheer practicality of attempting to do that with a class of 30 or even 40 or more pupils. Even if the teacher has adequate information about the learners' initial ideas, attempting to respond to their individual ideas can become an impossible exercise in classroom management. We know many teachers and student teachers who have made a commitment to a constructivist approach but feel guilty because they are unable to manage to implement this in their practice.
Guidance is readily available on the ideas which learners hold and on the range of methods which researchers have used to elicit the learners' ideas (Driver et al, 1985; White and Gunstone, 1992; Driver et al, 1994). However the guidance available to teachers on how to promote restructuring of the learners' ideas is much more limited. Claxton (1986) described the "mountain of examples of children's alternative conceptions" (p126) which were available at that time and noted that the guidance for teachers on how to restructure the learners' ideas was less prominent in the literature. The balance in more recent research remains weighted towards elicitation rather than restructuring, and the comments made by Claxton have been reiterated by Trumper (1990), White (1994) and Prideaux (1995). Research into the ideas that learners hold is relatively "safe" research, in that it is located within a well-documented paradigm, it is easy to manage, and it is very difficult to challenge since it makes no attempt to predict or to prescribe what practice will be effective. By contrast research into how to restructure the learners' ideas has few advantages, even though it may be more valuable for teachers.
Underpinning these concerns is the issue of the relevance of the research to teachers. There seems to be little doubt that researchers frequently are concerned about the classroom relevance of their research. For example, Driver and Oldham (1986) make it clear that the aim of the Children's Learning in Science Project is to "devise, implement and evaluate teaching materials and strategies which attempt to promote conceptual change" (p108), and the Nuffield Primary Science (1993a) materials are a direct outcome of the SPACE Research Project. In both of these major UK projects teachers have had a central role in researching, developing and trialling teaching materials. However Webb (1990) notes the difficulty for teachers working within a research group to question the values, paradigms and frameworks to which that group is committed and points out the danger of
teachers being channelled into certain ways of interpreting their world in forms of research which specifically set out to "emancipate" them (p26).
Thus the involvement of teachers in research projects is no guarantee that the outcomes of the research will be viewed as relevant by teachers outside the research groups. There is no doubt that research into the alternative conceptions held by learners is valuable, but it is unfortunate that much of the research does not take the next step of putting forward specific strategies for developing their ideas. This may help to explain why many teachers have made only limited use of the research data. From an action research perspective (Elliot 1991) it appears that the the priority for much of the research has been to improve understanding of the situation in which practice occurs rather than to improve practice directly (Carr and Kemmis, 1986).
Concept cartoons as an approach to teaching and learning in science
It was in response to issues such as these that we developed our cartoon-style drawings as a means of presenting alternative conceptions in science. On the first occasion that they were used we were looking for alternative approaches to engage a group of students in thinking about science concepts. We hoped that by presenting alternative ideas in a visually accessible and appealing format we would be able to elicit the students' ideas and provide suitable challenges