Özet:

In this research the prospective science teachers’ level of understanding the basic astronomical concepts and their misconceptions were analyzed through a longitudinal study The research was conducted on a group of 57 students attending the science teaching department The Astronomical Concepts Test ACT consisting of 13 open ended questions was used as a data obtaining tool The ACT was applied to the students throughout their whole license education period including their first second third and fourth years When the obtained data were analyzed it was confirmed that in the beginning of their license education the sudents’ level of understanding for these concepts were considerably low and they brought with them many misconception about astronomy Later it was seen that in the second class their misconceptions decreased significantly when they began to learn and enquire scientific explanations about these concepts However explanations in line with scientific understanding started to decrease to decrease and misconceptions increased again in the third and fourth classes This shows that studenst who will become teachers in the prospective teachers completed their undergraduate education with several misconceptions Some of these misconceptions were rather smilar to those of elementery school students The results were compared with the studies on the related literature and some suggestions were made Key words: Astronomical concepts misconceptions longitudinal study

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