Readability of some topics in select current ordinary level chemistry textbooks and Nigerian students' perception about difficulty of the topics

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to determine the readability of some topics in chemistry and to find out the perception of students about the topics. One hundred and forty-five year 3 senior secondary chemistry students in a university demonstration school who have just concluded their SSCE for 2014/2015 constituted the study sample. These students have also read the five commonly used chemistry textbooks investigated in the study. Flesch readability formula was used to assess the readability of the chemistry topics while a perception rating scale was used to determine the students’ perception of the chemistry topics. Overall findings of the study revealed that readability indices ranging between 51.2 and 87.0 indicated that the topics were readable by 7th to 12th grade students in the selected chemistry books. It was also observed in the study that over 50% of the students perceived rates of chemical reaction and acids, bases and salts difficult to learn. In all there was no significant relationship between the readability score and the difficult indices of the topics chosen from the commonly read textbooks in the schools. These findings and their implications were discussed in the study.