Pre-service Primary Teachers’ Ideas about Lunar Phases

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore pre-service primary teachers’ ideas about how lunar phases occur. 154 third year primary student teachers were asked to explain “why the moon is seen in different shapes when we look at the sky at different times”. They have given enough time to explain their answers in writing. Then, their responses were examined and categorized as scientific explanations and misconceptions. Results of the study showed that while the 54 % of the student teachers’ ideas about the lunar phases are scientific, the remaining 46 % of them could be categorized as misconceptions. Some of the misconceptions detected from the student teachers’ explanations of the causes of the moon phases are: earth’s shadow on the moon, earth’s rotation or varying distance between the earth and the moon. The study revealed similar results with the previous studies conducted in other cultures.