Preservice Elementary Teachers' Conceptual Understanding about Universe Concept

This study is aimed to reveal the conceptual understandings of preservice elementary teachers’ about the centre of universe and how universe is formed.  The sample of this research consists of 306 preservice elementary teachers’ who are studying in faculties of educational sciences in Turkey. Two open-ended questions regarding the centre of universe and how universe is formed are asked to preservice teachers. Categories such as “scientific response”, “response that cannot be accepted scientifically”, “uncoded” and “no understanding” are used in the analysis of preservice teachers’ responses. The scientific response about the centre of the universe, saying “there is no centre of universe”, is encountered in more than half of the preservice teachers’ responses. Alternative conceptions, such as “Sun is the centre of universe”, “Earth is at the centre of universe”, “Milky Way Galaxy is at the centre of universe” are encountered in this question. Nearly half of the preservice teachers gave correct responses, by saying “big bang theory”, regarding the question on how the universe is formed. Alternative conceptions, such as “by the cooling and densification of dust clouds”, “parts coming off the Sun”, “the universe’s being always present” are encountered in preservice teachers’ responses to this question. Some of these alternative conceptions are encountered in this study for the first time.