Development of a Problem-Solving Skills Test for Social Studies Teacher Candidates (Pilot İmplementation Validity and Reliability Study)

The aim of the research is to develop a problem-solving skills test to determine the problem-solving skills of social studies teacher candidates. The survey model, one of the quantitative research methods, was used in the research. The study group of the research consists of 66 social studies teacher candidates studying at two different universities in Türkiye. During the development of the problem-solving skills test, firstly experts in the field were interviewed and a literature review was conducted. International exam questions such as PISA, TİMS and national exam questions such as ALES, KPSS, TYT, AYT and LGS were examined. In the first stage, 50 multiple-choice questions were prepared and the opinions of a total of 13 experts, including four faculty members, four instructors and five social studies teachers, were taken to determine content validity. As a result of expert opinions, some of the questions in the problem-solving skills test were corrected and some were removed from the test by reducing the number of questions to 38 and were made ready for application. In practice, the test consisting of 38 multiple-choice questions was administered to 66 people and item analyzes were performed. In practice, the average difficulty index of the test was 0.56, and the average discrimination index was found to be 0.48. It was decided to remove the items that have 0.30 discrimination value and below from the test. The KR-20 reliability coefficient value of the test was found to be 0.92. As a result of the item analysis, a valid and reliable problem-solving skills test consisting of 21 items was developed. More reliable and valid information can be obtained by applying the developed test on a larger sample group.