The main purpose of this study was to develop and administer a four tier diagnostic test for assessing the senior high school Bataknese students’ alternative conceptions related to acids and bases chemistry and to discover students’ alternative conceptions that are influenced by their culture and language. In order to develop the Four Tier Acids and Bases Diagnostic Test (FTABDT) for this study, the framework by Schaffer were adapted. There was three main stages in order to develop the FTABDT which are defining the acids and bases contents, researching on students’ alternative conception through literature review and semi structured interview, and lastly, the development of FTABDT. 5 elder and 8 students were interviewed in order to collect the idea or conceptions of Bataknese people as well as their culture which might related to the students’ alternative conceptions. The result of the interview were use as the distractor or choices in the FTABDT items. From the interview, some alternative conceptions was gathered and themed into some sections according to the learning outcome of the acid and base content. From these interviews and studies in the literature, 24 items of FTABDT were developed and validated by two experts whose concentration were in Chemistry and assessment. The FTABDT items were administered to three different school from different region in Samosir, which are Palipi, Pangururan, and Simanindo. 600 students were purposively chosen as the subjects of this study, unfortunately, only 493 students did the test. Finally, the data collected from this study were analyzed by excel and spss to give the statistic descriptive of students’ conceptions. The conceptions which are considered as alternative conceptions must held by more than 10% of the total subjects, and considered to be significant. More than 50% of the students believe that acids are corrosive because acid from pineapple could cause miscarriage. On the other hand, at least 8 from the total of interviewee feels difficult to understand and explain acids and bases chemistry because of the lack of language and the different meaning of same word in Bataknese Language. The highest percentage of alternative conception found in this study was 51.32% of the students who has misconceptions in the concept of corrosiveness of acids and bases which caused by the culture of Bataknese people themselves.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS i
ABSTRACT ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS iii
LIST OF TABLE vi
LIST OF FIGURE vii
1. INTRODUCTION 1
1.1. Background of Study 2
1.2. Motivation of Study 4
1.3. Purpose of Study 5
1.4. Research Questions 6
1.5. Definition of Terms 6
2. LITERATURE REVIEW 7
2.1. Alternative Conceptions 7
2.1.1. The Origin of Alternative Conception 8
2.1.2. Students’ Alternative Conceptions in Acid and Base 11
2.2. Investigating Students’ Conceptions 14
2.2.1. Interviews and Open Ended Tests 15
2.2.2. Ordinary Multiple Choice Tests 15
2.2.3. Multiple Tier Tests 16
2.3. Acid and Base Chemistry 23
2.3.1. The Properties and Theory of Acids and Bases 24
2.3.2. The Strength of Acids and Bases 25
2.3.3. Neutralization and Salt 27
2.3.4. The pH of a Solution 28
2.3.5. Acids and Bases Titration 28
2.3.6. Hydrolysis of Salt 30
2.3.7. Buffers 31
2.4. Bataknese in Indonesia 32
2.4.1. Science and Batak Toba Culture 36
2.4.2. Bataknese and Their Daily Culture 38
3. METHODOLOGY 41
3.1. Theoretical Framework 41
3.2. Population and Sample 57
3.3. Time and Location of Study 58
3.4. Data Analysis 59
4. RESULT 61
4.1. Analysis of the Results of Four Tier Acids and Bases Diagnostic Test 61
4.1.1. Prior Analysis 61
4.1.2. Validity 62
4.1.3. Analysis of the Result of FTABDT Scores 62
4.2. Analysis of the Interview 78
4.2.1. Determining the Chemical Properties of Aloe Vera 79
4.2.2. Determining the Chemical Properties of Curcumin Juice 80
4.2.3. Determining the Role of Citric Juice for Making Naniura 80
5. Conclusion 83
5.1. Discussion of the Results 83
5.2. Conclusions 84
5.3. Implication of the Study 85
REFERENCES 87
APPENDIX 95
4.2.2. Appendix A. Instrument of Four Tier Acids and Bases Diagnostic Test 95
4.2.3. Distribution of Students’ Answer for Answer, Reasoning, and Both Tier from All Subjects 112

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