IDENTIFICATION OF DIFFICULT CONCEPTS IN MATHEMATICS AS PERCEIVED BY MATHEMATICS TEACHERS IN SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN DELTA STATE

By E. U. Nwabufoh

Abstract: The study examined teachers’ perception of difficult Mathematics topics in senior secondary schools in Oshimili South Local Government Area of Delta State. A total of 50 Mathematics teachers formed the sample for the study, a descriptive survey research was used. The instrument used for data collection was the Mathematics Assessment Questionnaire (MAQ) constructed by the researcher comprising of Mathematics Topics extracted from the WAEC syllabus. Mean and Standard Deviation were used as statistical tools to analyze the research questions while the hypotheses were analyzed using t-test and ANOVA analysis at 0.05 level of significance. The result showed that there is no significant difference in the perceived area of difficulty between teachers in urban and rural areas. The study revealed that there is no significant difference in the perception of difficult topics between male and female teachers. The study showed that there is no significant difference in the perception of difficult topics among teachers with different years of experience. Finally, the study showed that there is no significant difference in the perception of difficult topics among teachers with different qualifications. It recommended that more books especially those containing the difficult topics should be made available in simpler terms and steps. It also recommended that workshops and seminars should be organized for the training and retraining of teachers on the difficult topics in the Mathematics curriculum.
Keywords: Mathematics, Concepts and perception.