The past few years have seen an increase in the amount of attention focused on invention and design education at the college and K-12 levels. Given these efforts, the dearth of research on students' preexisting conceptions of invention is surprising. Knowledge of invention beliefs and attitudes will inform educational efforts by allowing educators to target the curriculum and accompanying activities more effectively than is possible without this knowledge. In this study, 55 sixth-grade students completed open-ended survey questions related to their conceptions of"invention." Results suggest that students have few or simplistic conceptions of the invention and patent processes. Prior exposure to invention instruction or previous experience with inventing did not appear to have an impact on students' conceptions of invention. In order to dispel these superficial implicit theories, educators involved with invention programs should consider the use of active, situated teaching techniques such as project- and problem-based learning. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
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