While constructing their understanding in various science areas, students go through transitional phases that may involve richly developed and consistently used mental models. These transitional models are unique and coherent cognitive structures composed of the elements of both scientifically accepted models and the commonly used initial alternative models. Such models have been previously referred to as hybrid models or blend models. We discuss the nature of model blending in the context of

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... und propagation and suggest several solutions to methodological issues that surface in their qualitative and quantitative eliciting, such as linking answer choices across multiple questions, which we called Linked Item Model Analysis, LIMA. edited by Jones, Ding, and Traxler; Peer-reviewed,