Determination of secondary students' misconceptions about oxidation and reduction

The first topic of the unit "Chemistry and electricity", which is the first unit of the 12th grade chemistry course, is reduction and oxidation reactions. Learning this subject in a meaningful way will help to understand the other topics of the unit and to better understand the reactions in the organic chemistry units that follow. On the other hand, it is known that students have important misconceptions about reduction-oxidation reactions. Brandriet and Bretz (2014a) developed a test that measures students' understanding of reduction-oxidation at the symbolic and microscopic levels. In this study, in which this test was used, it was aimed to adapt the Redox Concept Inventory (ROXCI) into Turkish, to examine the achievement levels of 12th grade students in terms of oxidation-reduction reactions in terms of different variables, and to determine the students' misconceptions about the subject. After obtaining permission for the use of the test, a Turkish adaptation study was carried out. At the end of the adaptation study, it was determined that the reliability values of the ROXCI were compatible with the original test. The test was administered to 600 12th grade students, 347 girls and 253 boys. The Cronbach α values of the test, which consists of 18 questions and the confidence level part is attached to the end of each question, were found to be 0.56 for the first part and 0.92 for the second part. It was determined that there was no significant difference between the achievements of the students in the first part of the test and gender, but there was a significant difference between the achievements of the students studying at school 1, school-2, school-3 and the success of students studying at school-7 and school-8. It was concluded that 12th grade students had misconceptions about oxidation number, surface properties of chemical reactions, electron transfer, the role of spectator ion, dynamic reaction process, electrostatic interactions and bonding themes. At the end of the study, suggestions for teaching the subject of reduction and oxidation are given.