Topics perceieved as difficult in science curriculum, possible reasons and teacher and student views

This study aims to i) identify which topics are regarded as difficult in science curriculum by the 5th , 6th, 7th and 8th grade students, ii) find out whether the topics perceived as difficult differ or not according to students and teachers, iii)discover possible reasons why these topics are perceived as difficult and iv)propose solutions to eliminate these difficulties. The study was carried out in the spring semester of 2016-2017 education year with 460 8th grade students studying in 8 different secondary schools in the district of Bolu and 34 science teachers with at least 5 years of experience working in these schools. This study was conducted in two phases in which qualitative and quantitative research methods were used.In the first phase, 'Science Course Difficult Topics Determination Questionnaire' , which was prepared by surveying secondary school science curriculum and related literature, was applied to the 8th grade students and science teachers in order to identify the topics that the students perceive as difficult. Data collected in this phase were processed with the help of difficulty determination formula and Excel program and difficulty indexes were determined for each topic. The second phase of the study dealt with identifying the reasons why the students and teachers perceive the science topics as difficult. For this reason, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 28 students and 10 teachers selected among the students and teachers who stated the subjects as difficult. The data obtained were transcripted and analyzed using content analysis method. The results of the research showed that i) the students had the most difficulty in subjects related to the learning field of physical events ii) the subjects at the 7th grade level were perceived more difficult and there were differences between the topics perceived as difficult by the students and the topics the teachers consider that their students perceive as difficult. Besides, it was discovered that why the students regarded these subjects as difficult were identified as ; i) inadequate teaching methods and techniques used by teachers, ii)lack of democratic classroom environment, iii)too much usage of terminological terms, iv)lack of experiments and activities, v)lack of adequate and effective use of course materials, vi)the presence of abstract concepts, vii)presence of topics harder than the grade level viii)presence of topics requiring maths skill, ix)lack of motivation, effect of classroom atmosphere and environment, x)insufficient time allocated to the course and inaccuracies in pre-learning. These findings are compared with the results of similar researches in the science education literature and proposals were put forward to overcome the difficulties.