A Comparison of Perceived and Actual; Students’ Learning Difficulties in Physical Chemistry

摘要

Having established from researches that students experience learning difficulties in physical chemistry (electrolysis) and that those researches have not been able to find an end to the learning difficulties known through the use of questionnaires, the study made a comparison of perception and actual students’ learning difficulties in physical chemistry (electrolysis). Two hundred chemistry students were selected purposively from thirteen Senior Secondary School Three classes in Ido local government of Oyo State, Nigeria. Three research question and a hypothesis were raised. The instruments used for the collection of data were Students’ Learning Difficulty in Physical Chemistry Questionnaire (r = 0.98) and Physical Chemistry Learning Difficulty Diagnostic Test (r = 0.87). The data collected were analysed using simple percentage and chi-square analysis. The result showed that many areas of physical chemistry where students perceived no difficulty were actually difficult for them to solve. It was recommended among other things, that students’ perceived difficulty should not be used as the basis for understanding the learning difficulties in electrolysis.