The purpose of this study was to classify types of preconception about the motion of the moon held by middle school students and find out how the lesson applying cognitive conflict instructional model changes their conceptual view of the motion of the moon. A quantitative study was first conducted with 48 ninth graders and then followed by a qualitative study. In the qualitative study, male and female students were organized into groups of five and ten respectively. Students were instructed to observe the motion of the moon about for a month and at the same time were taught via the cognitive conflict instructional model for three class periods. Data were collected from interviews and a questionnaire evaluating the degree of concept development that each student showed. A majority of students were found to hold misconceptions formed from elementary school programs on the motion of the moon. Further, students showed lack of scientific ability to interpret the phenomena of the moon. This study showed that the cognitive conflict instructional model was effective for students to make progress regarding their conceptual views of the motion of the moon. However, it was observed that misconceptions by students may possibly occur when two dimensional figures or miniatures were used.