Available Languages: English, Turkish

The main purpose of this study was to develop and administer a four-tier test for assessing Turkish pre-service physics teachers' misconceptions about geometrical optics. Sixteen pre-service physics teachers, who were selected by maximum variation and convenience sampling methods from three state universities in Ankara, were interviewed in the contexts of plane mirrors, spherical mirrors, and lenses. From these interviews and the studies in the literature, the Open-Ended Geometrical Optics Test was developed. It was administered to 52 pre-service physics teachers from three state universities selected by purposive and convenience sampling. The responses of each subject for each item were categorized in order to determine the alternatives of the multiple-tier multiple-choice misconception test. The initial form of the test, the Three-Tier Geometrical Optics Test (TTGOT), was administered to 53 pre-service physics teachers from three state universities selected by purposive and convenience sampling as a pilot study. The analysis of the results of the TTGOT was used to revise the test items. Finally, the Four-Tier Geometrical Optics Test (FTGOT) was developed and administered to 243 pre-service physics teachers from 12 state universities in Turkey. The validity of the FTGOT scores was established by means of some qualitative and quantitative methods. The Cronbach alpha reliability coefficients were calculated for different test scores. Those for the total correct scores and standardized misconception scores (SUMM4) were found to be .59 and .42, respectively. Some misconceptions, which were held by more than 10% of the pre-service teachers, were identified and considered to be significant.