ABSTRACT

This study focused on Determination of Difficult Topics in the Physics Curriculum as Perceived by Senior Secondary School Physics Teachers and Students in Imo State. A descriptive survey research design was used for the study. Five research questions guided the study and three null hypotheses were formulated for the study. The population of the study was made up of 6845 physics students and teachers in Imo state. The sample comprises of 192 students and 48 teachers in two Educational Zone of Imo state, with a total sample of 240. This sample was drawn from eight Local Government Areas out of seventeen Local Government Areas in the Zones using multi-stage sampling technique. The instrument used for data collection was Determination of Areas of Difficult Topics in the Physics Curriculum as Perceived by Senior Secondary School Physics Teachers and Students (DADTPC) based on the purpose of study and validated by three experts in the Department of Science Education, Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike. The test-re-test method of reliability of the instrument was used for DADTPC and data obtained were analyzed using Pearson Product Moment Correlation coefficient of 0.85. All research questions were analyzed using mean and standard deviation. t-test of independent was used to test hypothesis and chi-square statistic was used to test the null hypotheses 2 and 3 at 0.05 level of significance. The results of the work analyzed revealed that the topics in Physics curriculum which teachers and students Perceived to be difficult are Equation of uniformity accelerated motion, simple harmonic motion, Heat Energy, Electric Charges, linear momentum, Mechanical Energy, Production and description and Property of a field, Gravitational field, Electric field and Magnetic field, simple A.C. circuit, Fluids at rest and in Motion, Models of the action, Energy Quantization, Wave- particles paradox. There was no significant difference between the mean rating of Physics Teachers and Students in the perceived areas of difficult topics in the senior Secondary School Physics curriculum. Based on the findings, it was recommended that schools, state and federal ministry of education should make frantic efforts to expose teachers to refresher courses in order to teach the difficult topics more effectively.