Abstract:

The aim of this study is to analyse the levels of understanding of the social studies teacher candidates towards the economy concepts. The study group of the research in the survey model consisted of 107 senior teacher candidates from the department of social studies teaching. 24 concepts were determined with the scope of the economy course taught in the social studies teaching undergraduate program. A semi - structured concept scale that was prepared by the researchers and that had 24 short - answered and open – ended questions was used to find out the levels of understanding of the teacher candidates towards these concepts and the misconceptions on these concepts. The candidates’ answers to the related concepts were evaluated by the method of descriptive analysis according to the categories of ‘understanding’, ‘limited understanding’, ‘misunderstanding’, ‘can’t answer’. It was found out in the result of the data analysis that the teacher candidates had misunderstandings (misconceptions) especially related to the concepts of “interest, unearned income, commodity, service, supply, market, deflation, devaluation”. It was also found out that the teacher candidates knew the concepts of “economy, production, labour, market, entrepreneur, resource, interest, demand, investment, employment, inflation, revaluation” in the level of limited understanding. It was concluded that they knew the concepts of “goods, market, import, export” in the level of understanding.

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