There have been few studies on topic difficulty in the public administration curriculum of African universities. This is further problematized by non-existent literature on the relationships between gender, future career interest and country of study on student difficulty in the study of public administration. This is a gap in the public administration literature which this study attempts to fill. The work is significant to the extent that our understanding of ‘where the shirt tights’ regarding topics that students find difficult will guide teachers and other stakeholders in applying appropriate remedies. The purpose of the study is to find out (a) what topics in public administration students find difficult to learn; (b) if there are statistically significant relationship between gender and concept difficulty in the study of public administration in African universities; (c) if there are statistically significant relationship between student’s career interest and concept difficulty in the study of public administration; and (d) if there are statistically significant relationship between country of study and concept difficulty in the study of public administration. Quantitative method was employed with sample (N = 650). The study reports bureaucracy, decentralization, public policy and politics as moderately difficult; significant relationship between gender and concept difficulty; and significant relationship between student future career interest and concept difficulty. We suggest curriculum development that would improve students’ knowledge by laying more emphasis on the perceived difficult areas in the study of public administration, gender, and encourage early students’ interest in public sector career choices.

Chemical safety, a practice of protecting humans and the environment in which they work and live from the deleterious effects of chemical substances, was investigated in this study in Nigerian secondary schools. Using a mixed-method survey, we investigated the awareness level and implementation of the best practices of chemical safety by 1246 senior secondary school chemistry students. Students in rural schools were found to have a lower level of awareness of chemical safety compared to the students in urban schools. Statistically significant differences were found in all except one of the awareness measureswashing hands before practicals and after leaving the chemistry lab. Urban students were more in breach of chemical safety practices than students in rural schools. Most of the observed differences were statistically significant (p < 0.001). Interview (qualitative) data from 20 students show four emerging themes to explain the findings, including a low level of chemistry laboratory resourcing, poor chemical safety training of the teachers, inadequacies in safety tools, charts, and kits, and weak enforcement of safety regulations. Based on the data from the study, recommendations were made for bolstering the awareness level of students in chemical safety and their chemical safety practices. These include the incorporation of chemical safety in the core curriculum, requiring quality assurance entities to enforce resourcing of basic safety equipment to schools, government-directed workshops on the need for chemical safety, and requiring teachers to provide chemical hazards information to students.

There have been several efforts and interventions through research and workshops to introduce novel interventions in teaching and learning strategies by science educators around the globe. And countless numbers of strategies to improve academic performance had been introduced in the learning environment. However, many factors could be linked to different academic achievement and attitude to teaching and learning. Therefore, this study was conducted to investigate if the use of Culturo-Techno- Contextual Approach (CTCA), a learning strategy that incorporate the use of cultural knowledge (indigenous knowledge), component of contextual drawing from the immediate environment to illustrate teaching, and the component of technology to better strengthen learning. And the Peer-Led Team Learning (PLTL), a strategy involving peer learning method interventions to enhance the academic achievement and attitude of students in senior school in machine language. Why machine language? It is a concept in the Nigeria computer studies curriculum that students find difficult to learning. It is hypothesized that there is no statistically significances difference in i) effects of class stream (science, commercial, and arts) in achievement and attitude, and ii) in school type (private and public) in achievement and attitude when taught using the two strategies to teaching and learning machine language in secondary school. The research design was quasi-experimental (a pre-test post-test nonequivalent group) design. A total of 207 computer studies students in senior secondary year two (SS2) comprising 106 females and 101 males participated in the study. The instrument used to gather data was the machine language attitudes questionnaire (MLAQ) and machine language achievement test (MLAT) which had a reliability coefficient of 0.65. There are two experimental groups and they were taught separately with CTCA and PLTL while the control group was taught with the traditional lecture method. The data (pre-test and post-test scores) collected were analysed using mancova since the participants were not randomly assigned to the groups. When CTCA is used, students are required to (a) draw on their topicrelevant indigenous (cultural) knowledge; (b) use technology to seek pre-lesson knowledge of the topic to be taught; (c) work in groups to share knowledge gleaned from their socio-cultural interactions and webbased resources; and (d) draw on their prior knowledge of the topic when used. While the PLTL is based on social dimension, scientific learning discovery, and optimal learning which is active engagement by the students. The study found no statistically significant effect of class stream of students on achievement and attitudes of students when taught using CTCA, PLTL or lecture method [F (2, 202) = 0.20; p > 0.05] and on attitude [F (2, 202) = 2.13; p > 0.05]. While there was a significant difference in machine learning achievement of students taught using CTCA, PLTL, and the Lecture method [F (1, 203) = 4.34; p < .05] and a significant different in school type in machine learning attitude of students taught using CTCA, PLTL, and the Lecture method. [F (1, 203) = 5.82; p < .05]. Hence, the study concluded that educators are encouraged to use the CTCA and PLTL and they could capitalise on the assets of the CTCA and PLTL in demonstrating how it could be employed as a pedagogical design for enhancing the achievement and attitude of students in computer studies and other subjects which are offered at the senior secondary schools. The strategies will help both teachers and students to gain respect for local activities and culture, its wisdom and ethics and appreciate indigenous science and technology and appreciate the use of local resources more thereby enhancing sustainability and it will encourage collaboration among students thereby leading to better academic achievement and attitude. Keyword: Culturo-Techno-Contextual Approach (CTCA); Peer-Led Team Learning (PLTL); Machine Language; Collaborative.

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The new senior secondary school physics curriculum for Anglophone West African countries came into use in 2015. Since the beginning of its implementation, even though, the performance of the candidates has not been high, yet reported empirical studies on the difficulty level of the content, and specifically the topics or concepts have been scant. Moreover, there have never been any published studies which conducted an in-depth probe into the aspects of the topics students find difficult in physics and science in general, beyond mere cataloguing of such topics, nor have there been any, in which students were qualitatively engaged in making inputs towards the amelioration of the topic difficulty. This is a huge gap in literature which this study determined to fill. The effort is significant to the extent that understanding the areas of difficulties of the topics as perceived by the students is good pointer towards remedy by teachers and stakeholders. The study therefore undertook five missions: (a) to find out the topics in the new physics curriculum that secondary school students find difficult (b) undertake in-depth probe of the specific aspects of the topics for which students have learning difficulty. (c) probe the possible causes of or factors responsible for these difficulties (d) determine if school location, school ownership and students’ gender have impacts on students’ perception of physics topics difficulty; and (e) deriving from students’ views, suggest how physics can be made easy to learn. A sample of 1,105 students was drawn from 21 secondary schools in Nigeria and Ghana. These schools comprised 12 private and nine public schools randomly selected from rural and urban areas. 75% of the schools were urban while about 25% were rural. Randomly selected 10 students and five teachers were interviewed for qualitative data, while all the participants were involved in responding to the questionnaire. From data gathered, five top most difficult topics were refractive index, electromagnetism, radioactivity, curved lenses and sound: production, propagation and modulation. Rich qualitative data unique for this study, was reported. There was marked difference between urban and rural, private and public, but not in gender. Recommendations were made for better teaching and meaningful learning. Keywords: Backbone of difficult topics; meaningful learning of physics