6th grade students' misconceptions about force and motion analysis

The purpose of this study is to determine misconceptions of 6th grade students on the topic of force and motion after the last curriculum change.In this study, in order to develop the test which aims to identify the common misconceptions of students on the force and motion topic a literature survey has been done. After that, two different but parallel multiple choice misconception tests were prepared to determine students? misconceptions. The questions in these tests were composed of four choices with distractors including misconception statements. A pilot study has been conducted by applying these tests to 6th grade students in 7 elementary schools in İzmit. These tests were applied to 466 students in total; 235 students took the first test and other 231 took the second test. After conducting the validity and reliability analyses of these tests, non-working questions are eliminated and a new Force and Motion Misconception Test composed of 33 questions is prepared. This last version of the test was administered to 426 students in 5 different elementary schools in Sakarya. The data obtained from this administration have been analyzed by using t-test, Kruskal-Wallis test and One-way ANOVA. The results of these tests were interpreted and students? misconceptions were determined. The results obtained from this research and the results of previous research before curriculum change were compared in findings section. By this way, it is investigated that with the change in the curriculum whether there was a change in students? misconceptions which they developed during the previous curriculum.With the results of the analyses of the obtained data, it is determined that 6th grade students who were taught Force and Motion topic have various misconceptions. In terms of topic, misconceptions were occurred about the motion topic most, and then force, mass and velocity topics respectively.When it was investigated whether misconceptions about force and motion topic were affected from other variables or not, it was found that there was not a significant relationship between misconceptions and gender, and misconceptions and father?s status of being alive or dead. The student?s age, parents? educational degree, parents? job situation, family income and having a study room or not variables were found to be significantly related to misconceptions. Misconceptions increased or decreased according to these variables.Key words: concept, misconception, motion, force, force and motion, force and motion in science and technology education