A review of studies about four-tier diagnostic tests in physics education

Abstract

The aim of this research was to conduct a review of studies using four-tier tests to detect misconceptions in physics education. Fifty-eight studies whose main purpose was to develop a four-tier misconception test and eleven studies whose purpose was to determine learners' misconceptions using a four-tier diagnostic test without test development process in physics education between 2010 and 2022 inclusive with respect to their publication type, the publication year, the number of authors, and number of pages and whether the test was modified or not. General test information such as the physics topic that it examined, the number of misconceptions which were targeted, misconception criteria, validity, and reliability techniques and the number of items were also collected. Indonesia is the country where most of the studies were carried out. Surprisingly, it is found that there is no common agreement about misconception criteria in the studies. Also, it is seen that some important information about test development stages was not specified in many studies.

Bibliometric Investigation in Misconceptions and Conceptual Change Over Three Decades of Science Education

“…Research related to misconceptions is usually carried out only to identify students' conceptions and is used as evaluation material before starting learning (Miedema et al, 2022;Park, 2019;Tumanggor et al, 2020;K.-H. Yang & Lu, 2021). In determining whether students fall into the misconception group, trials are carried out in the form of tier questions, be it two-tier, three-tier, four-tier, or even up to five-tier (Anam et al, 2019;Laliyo et al, 2019;Önder Çelikkanlı & Kızılcık, 2022;D.-C. Yang & Sianturi, 2021). Through this test, we can map the profile of students with wrong conceptions regarding the material being tested.…”

How Do Science Content Misconceptions Occur in Primary School Teachers with Teaching Certificates?

“…validity and reliability tests of the research instrument in the form of a four tier misconception diagnosis test were carried out through several methods. Testing the four tier test can be done by expert validity, Pearson, false positive & false negative, and factor analysis for validity testing; meanwhile reliability tests are performed by Cronbach alpha,KR-20, and Pearson (Kaltakci- Gurel et al, 2017;Kiray & Simsek, 2021;Taban & Kiray, 2022;Çelikkanlı & Kızılcık, 2022). In this study, the validity test was carried out using expert validity, Pearson, and false positive & false negative tests, while the reliability test was done using KR-20.…”