Concept difficulty in secondary school chemistry: An intra-play of gender, school location and school type

Abstract

This study focused on addressing underperformance in chemistry in Anglophone West African countries. The main purpose of the study was to determine if factors such as gender, school location and ownership impact students’ perception of the difficulty of chemistry concepts and to suggest how these difficult concepts can be made easy to learn from the perspectives of the students. A mixed-methods approach was adopted. Participants were 1,292 chemistry students from nine public and 12 private secondary schools in Nigeria and Ghana with about three-quarters of the schools from urban areas. About 51% of the participants were females. Twenty-four students were interviewed to gather qualitative data. The Difficult Concept in Chemistry Questionnaire (DCCQ) and the Difficult Concepts in Chemistry Interview Guide (DCCIG) were used for data collection. The test-retest reliability coefficient of the DCCQ was 0.88. We found a slight difference in the perception of male and female students while school type came as a major determinant factor on students’ perception of difficult concepts in chemistry, just as school location. Phobia for calculations came out as a major cause of difficulty in the top five perceived difficult concepts. Findings on causes of learning difficulties were reported as well as suggestions for improvement as viewed by the students. Recommendations were made for improving the teaching and learning of chemistry in Anglophone West African schools.

Assessing conceptual difficulties experienced by pre-service chemistry teachers in organic chemistry

“…Concept difficulty refers to the degree to which a student can grasp an idea or issue (Oladejo et al, 2023). A considerable body of research has demonstrated that chemistry is a discipline that places significant cognitive demands on learners (Zoller & Tsaparlis, 1997).…”

Teachers’ Role in Chemistry Metacognition

“…The metacognitive thinking processes are verbalized by the teacher who is the expert learner in terms of metacognitive learning [4]. A question on the topic concentration is presented to the learners to solve: What is the concentration in mol dm −3 of a solution made from 7.31 g sodium chloride in 250 cm 3 of distilled water? The teacher models metacognitive thinking by thinking out loudly (verbalization) in the three phases of metacognitive learning (planning phase, monitoring phase and evaluation phase).…”

“…Definition of concentration. Convert a given mass into mol and a given volume into dm 3 . Calculate concentration.…”

“…Chemistry as a science subject is perceived as a very difficult or challenging subject in terms of learning and teaching by both learners and teachers [1]. This perception of chemistry being a very difficult or challenging subject has led to many science learners performing poorly and losing interest in the subject [2,3]. Therefore, there is need to attract more learners to study chemistry and improve the performance in this subject that is perceived as very difficult.…”

Analysis of Student Conceptions and Conceptional Changes about Chemical Equilibrium Materials in Concentration Factors

“…Variables that can be controlled experimentally are concentration, pressure, volume, and temperature. Students feel that chemistry is a complex subject, and students do not have a strong foundation before studying chemical equilibrium material, especially in the submatter of factors that affect chemical equilibrium (Belayneh & Belachew, 2023;Bernal-Ballen & Ladino-Ospina, 2019;Oladejo et al, 2023;Omilani & Elebute, 2020;Rahmawati et al, 2022). Chemical equilibrium matter is one of the abstract, defined, mathematical, and graphic complex matter.…”