Abstract
Conceptual change comes after gaining conceptual understanding. When students fail to gain conceptual understanding in mathematics, they resort to short cut methods like memorising, to enable them to answer questions that are asked directly. Questions that require reasoning are usually poorly answered because of the lack of conceptual understanding. This results in learners obtaining low scores in mathematics because questions are not always asked directly. Teaching based on the assessment of students’ current understanding is one of the tools that can be used in order to support student to gain conceptual understanding. In this paper, teaching and assessment is used to support students to have conceptual change in geometry of quadrilaterals. This paper took, a qualitative approach with 60 student teachers in their third year of study in the course component of geometry for intermediate phase at the university in the city of Johannesburg. This paper reveals that students can have conceptual change when they are convinced by being introduced to information they can relate with. How teachers teach mathematics in the classroom will determine if students will memorise or gain conceptual understanding.