Development of two-term multiple choice genetic concept diagnosis test and investigation of its effectiveness

The aim of this study is to develop a concept diagnostic test and to investigate its effectiveness to determine the concept related to genetic concepts of middle school 8th grade students. The screening model was included in the study. This study was carried out with the voluntary participation of 8th grade (87 male and 113 female) students in the middle school in the city of Bartın. In the application process, a bipolar multiple choice concept diagnostic test was developed to determine the misconceptions in the genetic unit for secondary school 8th grade students. In the process of developing two-part multiple choice concept diagnostic test, each question item was presented to the expert opinion. In accordance with the expert opinions, 60 students in the 8th grade were piloted. At the end of the pilot application, some changes were made in line with the data obtained and the main application was made to 200 students. The cronbach-alpha = 0.723 reliability coefficient of the two-tailed multiple-choice concept diagnostic test was found at the end of the original application. The final version of the Bipolar Multiple Choice Genetic Concept Test consists of 18 questions. As a result of the research, it was observed that students had many misconceptions about genetic concepts. It has been seen that the developed concept diagnostic test was effective in revealing the misconceptions of students.