Candidates of science teachers investigation of the conceptual understandings of the basic concepts of electrostatic

The aim of this research is to determine the conceptual understanding of pre-service science teachers about electrostatics. The sample of the research consists of 340 students, who are 4th grade students studying in Balıkesir University Necatibey Faculty of Education, Department of Science Education in the 2006-2019 academic terms. In order to determine the conceptual understanding of pre-service teachers, a conceptual understanding test consisting entirely of open-ended questions prepared by two physics education experts was used. Semi-structured interviews (YYG) were also conducted with pre-service teachers to support the data. The answers of the students were examined in detail one by one and the answers they gave were analyzed and categories were created. The majority of the students have the knowledge that a charged object can become electrified when it is approached to a conductive object, that objects with the same excess charge repel each other, they do not have the conceptual understanding that a neutral body can be attracted by an excess charge; knows that the purpose of grounding is to neutralize the object, but mostly negatively charged objects can be grounded, excess negative charges flow to the ground, positively charged objects can also be grounded, it has been determined that many students do not have the knowledge that negative charges will flow from the soil to the object. "With the answers they gave about the definition of the neutral object, it was determined that they did not have any misconceptions about this basic concept. In the light of the findings, suggestions have been made to avoid misunderstandings about the basic concepts of electrostatics.