An investigation of preservice elementary teachers' conceptual understanding about nuclear topics in everday life

The aim of this research is to determine the misconceptions of elementary pre-service teachers about nuclear topics in everyday life (NTEL) and to investigate the effects of the variables of "sex", "year" and "information sources about NTEL" on elementary pre-service teachers' conceptual understanding related to NTEL. In this research, among qualitative research methods, survey research method was used. 250 students who were attending Elementary Education Programs of Afyon Kocatepe University, Dumlupinar University and Pamukkale University constituted the research sample. The research sample was formed by convenient sampling method. A three-tier diagnostic test was developed to determine the elementary pre-service teachers' misconceptions about the nuclear topics in everyday life. Descriptive statistics was made used of for the development of nuclear topics in everyday life diagnostic test (NTELDT). For the analysis of the data obtained from the NTELDT, descriptive statistical figures, independent sample t-test and the one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) for independent groups were used. The data of the research attested that elementary pre-service teachers had many deficient and faulty believes and thoughts. Large majority of the identified misconceptions had similarities with the results obtained in the other related researches in the literature. Some identified misconceptions are thought to belong to this research due to the fact that they were not found in the related literature. It was concluded that the variables of "sex" and "information sources about NTEL" had no statistically significant effects on elementary pre-service teachers' conceptual understandings of NTEL. On the other hand, it was seen that the "year" variable had a statistically significant effect on elementary pre-service teachers' conceptual understandings about NTEL. Comparing to the elementary pre-service teachers of the other years, the results of the analysis showed that the fourth year elementary pre-service teachers, from the scientific perspective, had more accurate conceptual understanding. In addition to those, when taking the third tier named as "certainty response index" (CRI) into account, a decrease in the number of the identified misconceptions was observed. Therefore, it can be said that multiple choice three-tier diagnostic tests are more selective and deterministic than multiple choice two-tier diagnostic tests.