Conceptual change is described as a multifaceted process involving restructuring and reorganization of already embraced beliefs. Twenty-nine preschool children were interviewed about their conceptions of the earth every year from the year they were four to the year they were six years of age. For the children the incentive for changing ideas about the earth was their processing of incoherencies.  The children processed a lot of conflicting information. However, there does not appear to be any major conflict that causes the process of conceptual change to occur. This process is affected by incoherencies revealed in a relation between three entities, that is, two or more different facts or conceptions that conflict when related to one specific context. Conceptual change involves a simultaneous processing of information and complex conceptions, on the one hand, and revisions and changes at a model level on the other.

Research within a constructivist approach often relies on interview data, which are used to reveal beliefs held by the interviewee or to expose conceptions or conceptual structures that are supposed to reside within the interviewee. From a sociocultural perspective, severe criticism has been leveled against the neglect of the problems of inferring conceptions held by a participant from what is uttered in an interview. Utterances should be looked upon as cultural tools used to realize discursive practices, rather than as propositions mirroring mental entities. It is argued that the clinical interview, often used by constructivists, disregards the impact of a situation and discursive norms with regard to what is uttered in a conversation. Here, it is argued that by taking into account an interviewee’s conceptions of the situation, as well as of the subject matter being talked about, some sort of a bridge between the methodological standpoints of constructivism and sociocultural theory can be formed. It is proposed that utterances should be regarded as actions, and thus the problem of ascribing meanings to behavior is in focus, that is, how a series of behaviors can be regarded as an intentional action. It is argued that by means of such an approach, it is possible to make inferences about conceptions and conceptual structures much in the same way as is done in research on conceptual change. However, this means that utterances cannot just be “read off.” The interviewee’s aims, conceptions of the subject matter talked about, as well as the interviewee’s conceptions of the situation to hand must be taken into account. A reinterpretation of data reported by Andrea diSessa and Bruce Sherin is used as an illustration.