Perspectives on the need for consistency in considering the promotion of conceptual change in science students and teachers (and in some circumstances, researchers) are presented in this paper. The parallels between the consequences of this consistency and the literature on educational change are also highlighted. A particular focus is directed to the implications for pre-service and inservice education and for the fostering of approaches which support these implications for teacher education. Issues are addressed in the categories of: (1) student views and conceptual changes (reviewing different models of learning); (2) teacher change and the use of student views in classrooms (examining the strands involving formal research on conceptual change, constructivist perspectives in daily teaching, preservice teacher training courses, and inservice courses); and (3) researchers and conceptual change (providing a historical review of research on students' personal understandings of the world). The position is taken that fundamental similarities exist in the requirements for achieveing conceptual change in both students and teachers and that encouragement and support should be given to teachers in translating research into practice. A 24-item list of references is appended. (ML)