Eighth grade Turkish students' mental models about the nature of magnets and magnetic interactions were examined in this research study. Using an interpretive qualitative design, I conducted this study in a middle school with thirty-one Turkish students who have not had any formal magnetism instruction prior to the study. The participants were asked to respond to a series of survey questions about both the structure of magnets and interactions between magnets and an iron object (nail). The survey questions were developed in order to reveal students' reasoning and general cognitive process. Students' responses were analyzed to determine: (a) the common mental models about the structure and functionality of magnets, and (b) the consistency of students' knowledge of magnetic interactions across two different contexts. The findings produced by the Students' Mental Models about a Magnet section of the study indicate that students have uncertain mental models about both the structure of magnets and magnetic interactions. Students were aware of the attractive and repulsive feature of magnets, but they were unable to explain the underlying reason of these magnetic features. The analysis concerning Students' Mental Model of Interaction between a Magnet and a Non-magnetic Object showed that almost half of the participants (41.9%) had correct answers, but a lower sophistication level of explanation. Furthermore, while 35.5% of students showed partial understanding and consistency in their mental models of magnetic interaction, 22.6% of students' mental models reflected a non-accurate understanding of magnetic behaviors. In addition to the findings about students' mental model of magnetic properties, some of the terminology that students used to explain magnetic phenomena indicated that they preferred to use the words that sounds scientific even they did not know what these words meant. The results of this study facilitate to understand students' mental models about a physics topic which has an abstract nature. Furthermore, the findings will demonstrate how these students construct their mental models and how they externalize them.