Misconceptions are widely present among the students of all ages. Th e aim of this investigation was to determine the presence of misconceptions in understanding physical properties of water and to identify the most common ones. Quantitative analysis of data from the diagnostic conceptual test was performed on a sample of 243 fi rst and third grade students from three elementary schools in Sombor, Serbia. It was shown that the impact of gender and school affi liation were not proven to be statistically signifi cant factors in test achievements, while the children's age signifi cantly aff ects test results, as expected. Synthetic and scientifi cally correct answers were more frequent among the third grade students, while spontaneous answers were more common among the fi rst graders. Nevertheless, a signifi cant proportion of spontaneous answers implies that misconceptions about physical properties of water are almost identical and deep-rooted among students of both ages. Identifying children's misconceptions provides a basis for development of accurate conceptual understanding.
Misconceptions (naive knowledge) could be observed from the point of view that there is nothing useful and positive in them for further learning. However, they are actually the main foundation for building the right concepts and scientific knowledge. The only possible way to overcome misconceptions is to improve the teaching process and thus learning. The aim of this study was to verify the basic metric characteristics constructed concept test and detect tendencies in the level of representation of misconception in the understanding of the physical properties of light at primary school students. The sample consisted of 306 students of the first, second, third and fourth grade of elementary schools "Avram Mrazović" and "Ivo Lola Ribar" from Sombor and "Ivan Goran Kovačić" from Stanišić. Data collection was carried out by a testing technique. For the purpose of this research, a special test was constructed to check the student's knowledge, understanding, and ability to apply knowledge through questions (tasks) that include teaching content about the physical properties of water. The research results show satisfactory metric characteristics of the test and indicate the expected participants' misconception about the physical properties of light.
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