Topics perceived as difficult in the science and technology curriculum and possible reasons: Teacher and student views

This study aims to i) identify the topics perceived as difficult in the science and technology curriculum by 6th, 7th and 8th grade students, ii) determine the reasons why these topics are perceived as difficult and iii) present suggestions to overcome these difficulties.Quantitative and qualitative research methods were used in the study. The study comprised of two phases. First phase dealt with identifying the science topics perceived as difficult by the students. ?Science and Technology Topics Difficulty Questionnaire? prepared by reviewing the related literature was administered to 494 9th graders and preparatory class students along with 19 science and technology teachers. Students in the sample were selected from among students graduated from science and technology curriculum and the teachers were selected from among science and technology teachers working in the province of Bolu with at least five years of experience. The second phase of the study targeted at determining the factors related to the perception of difficulty towards science topics by the students and 25 students who were found to display the highest numbers in the questionnaire of difficulty were given semi-structured interviews. 5 teachers who were selected form the participating teacher group were also given semi-structured interviews. The interviews were recorded by a voice recording tool with prior permission from the participants. The interviews lasted for an average of 35 minutes.Data collected in the first phase of the study was processed with the help of the Excel program and the difficulty determination formula was used to obtain difficulty indices for each topic. Interviews in the second phase of the study were transcribed and analyzed by using content analysis method. The difficult topics and reasons underlying the difficulty obtained as a result of the study were compared with the other studies in the literature and similar findings were emphasized.Topics perceived as difficult by the students were identified at the end of the study. It was identified that topics in 6th and 7th grade levels were perceived to be more difficult compared to topics in 8th grade. The reason for this student perception was related to factors such as abundance of content, lack of prior information and knowledge in some classes, teaching method, factors related to teachers, being unable to associate what is learned with daily life, time allocated to classes, textbooks and the existence of mathematical expressions and symbols. Suggestions were provided to overcome these problems by comparing the results of this study related to the science and technology curriculum with the results obtained from similar studies about previously utilized science curriculum.