RELATIVE CONSISTENCY AND SUBJECTS THEORIES IN DOMAINS SUCH AS NAIVE PHYSICS - COMMON RESEARCH DIFFICULTIES ILLUSTRATED BY COOKE AND BREEDIN

While augmenting the literature with data that further exhibit context -specific responding to qualitative motion problems, Cooke and Breedin (1994) exhibit common theoretical and methodological difficulties tha t undermine their conclusions. Herein, these flaws are explicated and contrasted with features of studies that avoid the pitfalls of (1) the oretical vagueness, (2) overly coarse data aggregation, (3) nondiagnos tic, errorful assessment items, and (4) imprecise measures of the vari ety of (mis/)conceptions (e.g., of ''impetus,'' or inertia). The diffi culties call into question Cooke and Breedin's claims that impetus ide as play minor roles in performance and that ''naive theories'' of moti on are largely constructed on line. Because such confusion often arise s from the polysemy of ''theory,'' some empirical criteria for ''theor yness'' are discussed, including subjects' conceptual, temporal, and c oherence-based consistencies (regarding researchers' models and isomor phs). While naive physics may be idiosyncratic, baroque, context-drive n and apparently inconsistent, it might (additionally) be based upon f airly a priori, systematic, and temporally stable information.