Abstract
The study examines students’ perception of the level of difficulty of topics in Agricultural science in junior secondary school certificates. The sample was made up of three hundred and seventy three (373) junior secondary students drawn from sixty seven (67) public and private secondary schools within Yenagoa Local Government Area of Bayelsa State. The study was guided by two research questions and two hypotheses. The instrument used in the study was Basic Science Topics Checklist (BSTC) which consisted of twenty-one (21) topics drawn from the junior secondary schools Curriculum. The instrument was validated by experts and the reliability coefficient of 0.76 was established using test-retest reliability coefficient. The mean and standard deviation was used to analyse descriptive statistics while two-way analysis of variance was used to test the tenability of the hypotheses at 0.05 confidence level. From the analyses of data, it revealed that students in public schools perceived the topics more difficult than those in private schools; also there was a significant difference between the total means of male and female students as perceived level of difficulty in Agricultural Science subjects. The paper therefore recommends the use of certified teachers in the teaching of Agriculture Science in private schools and the establishment of monitoring and evaluation scheme. Other recommendations were also made.
Keywords: Perception, Difficult Topics, Agriculture Science, Certificates, Curriculum