Mathematics Teachers’ Perception of Difficult Concepts in Secondary School Mathematics Curriculum in Benue State, Nigeria

This study was designed to investigate secondary school mathematics teachers’ classification of concepts along the dimensions of difficulty level. Also, the intent was to study how mathematics teachers’ cognitive views and conceptualizations influence their perception of mathematics learning items as either difficult or otherwise. Ninety-five mathematics teachers at the secondary school level were used for this study. The instrument spanned algebra, number and numeration, geometry, trigonometry and statistics. Further, the concepts included in the instrument were extracted from the West African Examinations Council’s General Certificate in Education(GCE) O’ level syllabus and the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC) secondary school mathematics curriculum. The result of the analysis performed on responses of the subjects involved in the study showed poor agreement in the classifications of the mathematics concepts. Agreement was slightly strong on only five items. It seems the mathematics teachers agree that a majority of the items are important but easy to learn and teach.

Keyword: Perception, difficult concept, curriculum, mathematics teacher