This preliminary study aims at developing a program to improve teacher candidate students' conceptions on the topic of states of matter and their changes by using Predict-Observe-Explain (POE) strategy. This study employs pre-experimental method. The subjects involved were third-semester students of a primary school teacher education study program (Pendidikan Guru Sekolah Dasar -PGSD) in a university in West Java, Academic Year 2017/2018. The research instrument was a five-tiered diagnostic test in the form of multiple-choice. The instrument had gone through expert and empirical validation processes, which were provided before and after the implementation of the POE strategy. The data obtained were analyzed through descriptive and inferential statistics (t-test). The results showed that the use of POE strategy was able to improve the students' comprehension on the concept of states of matter and their changes either at macroscopic level (N-gain 0.32, p=0.00), submicroscopic level (verbal N-gain 0.44; p=0.00, and visual Ngain 0.49; p=0.00), or symbolic level (N-gain 0.41; p= 0.00). The acquired N-gain indicated the need for further research to improve the course program of states of matter and their changes using the POE strategy to obtain higher N-gain that indicates the need for improvement of the program, including the processes and aids of the course.

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This study aims to develop the five-tier multiple-choice diagnostic test to identify prospective elementary school teachers' misconceptions about phase transition using descriptive and verification methods. The subjects include 149 (116 female and 33 male students) prospective elementary school teachers in one of the Elementary School Teacher Education Study Programs (ESTESP) in West Java. The stages of the study are as follows: (1) designing a five-tier test instrument to analyze students' misconceptions; (2) validation by experts; (3) instrument testing that was done on prospective teachers who have received phase transition materials; and (4) instrument testing that was done on prospective elementary school teachers who have not received phase transition teaching materials. The obtained data were analyzed descriptively using the percentage technique. In general, the results show that the developed test (FTMC-PT/five-tier multiple choice-phase transitions) is ideal for identifying students' conceptions about phase transition. However, further study to develop the test items and to analyze them accordingly as per the item response theory is required.

An-ex-post-facto Study from Comprehensive Examination Result. Objectives: This study aims to describe prospective teachers' education field comprehensive examination results. Methods: A descriptive ex-post-facto method is employed to obtain data from students who took the final project on three study programs (Islamic Education, Biology Education, and Mathematics Education) in one of Ambon's Education Institutes of Education Personnel. Through observation and documentation, comprehensive examination scores of 108 students (27 males; 81 females) were obtained. Further, this data was analyzed using presentation techniques on six sub-components of the comprehensive educational exam. Findings: The results showed that the average ability of prospective teacher students was 83.94% (high category). Conclusions: Some prospective teachers were unable to adequately explain teacher competence and teaching theory. Therefore, they have to improve their capability in this topic.