ANALYSIS OF STUDENTS AND TEACHERS' PERCEPTION OF DIFFICULT CONCEPTS IN SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL MATHEMATICS CURRICULUM IN FEDERAL CAPITAL TERRITORY-ABUJA

Abstract

The study analysed of students and teachers' perception of difficult concept in senior secondary school mathematics curriculum. The study employed descriptive survey design type. The sample of 370 SSII students and 30 mathematics teachers were selected from Twelve (12) secondary schools using simple random sampling technique. The instruments used for data collection were Mathematics Students Questionnaires (MSQ) and Mathematics Teachers Questionnaires (MTQ). The reliability coefficients of the instruments were determined using Alpha Crobach's and reliability coefficient were found to be 0.86 and 0.79 for MSQ and MTQ respectively. Four research questions were raised and two null hypotheses were formulated and tested at 0.05 levels of significant. Statistical tools used were ANOVA and t-test. The result shows that, students perceived six (6) while teachers perceived three (3) concepts as difficult using the mean value less than three. Also, there was significant gender difference in students' perception of difficult concepts in senior secondary school mathematics curriculum. The result revealed that there was significant gender difference in teachers' perception of difficult concepts in senior secondary school mathematics curriculum. It was recommended that government should organize seminars and workshops for teachers on those identified difficult concepts on how best such concepts can be best taught.