Abstract

An understanding of the chemical bonding content, as one of the fundamental concepts in chemistry, is crucial for the acquisition of knowledge. Nevertheless, a considerable proportion of learners, including pre-service chemistry teachers, demonstrate only a surface-level understanding of the content. The objective of this study was to ascertain the extent to which pre-service chemistry teachers in Indonesia demonstrate an understanding of the concept of chemical bonding, with a particular focus on ionic and covalent bonds. Using an exploratory research design, the study conducted a ten-item Chemical Bonding Diagnostic Tool (CBDT) test on forty-three pre-service chemistry teachers and assessed their understanding of bonding concepts by analyzing their test responses. The findings revealed that the most prevalent conceptual understanding level (CUL) was Lack of Knowledge (LoK, 25.35%), followed by misconception false positive (MFP, 22.09%), scientific knowledge (SK, 21.63%), and genuine misconception (GM, 13.72%). In contrast, the misconception false negative (MFN, 7.91%) and guesswork (Gw, 9.30%) levels were relatively low. The study also identified twenty-nine Alternative Conceptions (ACs) related to the characteristics of compounds’ formation, the properties of the elements, and microscopic states of the compounds. The following findings indicate a need for improvement and strengthening of the conceptual understanding of pre-service chemistry teachers to prevent the further spread of misconceptions and ACs.