Assessment of Students’ Perception of Content Difficulty in the Nigerian Further Mathematics Curriculum

2011(NERDC, 2012). All school subjects have curriculum that guides its classroom content delivery and Further Mathematics is not an exemption. Further Mathematics curriculum is defined as the formal document which prescribes the content of advance mathematical concepts that the teacher is expected to implement in the classroom alongside with performance objectives, Abstract: The study assessed the extent of students’ perception of content difficulty in the Nigerian Further Mathematics Curriculum (FMC).The descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study. The study was conducted in Gokana local government area of Rivers State, Nigeria with a population of sixty (60) senior secondary class three students offering Further Mathematics from the twelve (12) public senior secondary schools in the area. Census sampling technique was used to select the sample of 60 students used for the study. The instrument for data collection was the researchers’ made and validated Further Mathematics Curriculum Content Difficulty Assessment Questionnaire (FMCCDAQ). The test-retest reliability method and Pearson’s Product Moment Correlation (PPMC) statistic were used to obtain 0.73 reliability coefficient for the FMCCDAQ. Six research questions guided the study. Mean, standard deviation and simple percentages were used for data analysis. The study found out that students perceived 88.20% of the Further Mathematics curriculum content difficult to learn with learning difficulties in all the FMC themes of pure mathematics, coordinate geometry, statistics, mechanics and operations research indicating poor FMC implementation. The study among others recommended a holistic review of the Nigerian FMC contents and improved instructional effectiveness through training and re-training of Further Mathematics teachers.

teacher and student activities, the instructional strategies and materials. The curriculum content of Further Mathematics can simply be referred to as advance Mathematics. The above definition implies that Further Mathematics can also be defined as higher Mathematics. This may suggest why some countries call it higher or advanced Mathematics. It also describes a course studied in addition to the General Mathematics. The study of Further Mathematics involves studying both pure and applied Mathematics. The pure part of Further Mathematics is of a higher standard than those of the General Mathematics. The topics covered in Further Mathematics are more sophisticated and conceptually advanced compared to the General Mathematics. Further Mathematics affords Senior Secondary School students' opportunity to be introduced to some topics in Advanced Level mathematics in order to prepare them to study mathematics or mathematics related courses in their next level of education (Charles-Ogan and George, 2019).
Further Mathematics is a highly respected subject and is recognized for its challenging content. It is recommended for students with high ability in General Mathematics who will need to acquire a foundation for future studies in Mathematics or the Mathematics related sciences. Despite the fact that the subject is recommended for high ability students, it does not rule out the fact that students who offer it are free of difficulties that may arise from its learning. To this end Iji and Omenka (2015) opined that some of the reasons that make students experience difficulties in Nigerian Mathematics programmes are non-preparedness of Mathematics teachers to handle the teaching of the curriculum contents, insufficient time to teach and overload of the curriculum. It is over a decade since the trade-based Mathematics curriculum was designed and implemented. With the introduction of new and advance curriculum contents in the FMC, the researchers deemed it fit to embark on this study, so as to ascertain the students' perception of content difficulty in the Nigerian Further Mathematics Curriculum.

Statement of the Problem
Research reports revealed abysmal performance of senior secondary students in General Mathematics in external examinations with students perceiving some contents of the General Mathematics Curriculum (GMC) difficult to learn (Zalmon & Wonu, 2017;Zalmon & George, 2018). If the same students offering General Mathematics and Further Mathematics had perceived learning difficulties in the GMC content which is a prerequisite to learning the FMC content, it is expected that their perception of content difficulty in the FMC will be higher with a corresponding poor performance in external examinations. Therefore, the investigation delved into finding answer to the question: what is the extent of students' perception of content difficulty in the Nigerian Further Mathematics curriculum?

Aim and Objectives of the Study
The aim of this study was to assess the extent of students' perception of content difficulty in the Nigerian Further Mathematics Curriculum (FMC).The objectives were to:  Assess the extent of students' perception of the Pure Mathematics content difficulty in the FMC.  Determine the extent of students' perception of the Coordinate Geometry content difficulty in the FMC.  Ascertain the extent of students' perception of the Statistics content difficulty in the FMC.  Find out the extent of students' perception of the Mechanics content difficulty in the FMC.  Evaluate the extent of students' perception of the Operations Research content difficulty in the FMC.  Assess the extent of student perception of the FMC content difficulty.

Research Questions
Six research questions guided the study:  What is the extent of students' perception of the Pure Mathematics content difficulty in the FMC?  What is the extent of students' perception of the Coordinate Geometry content difficulty in the FMC?  What is the extent of students' perception of the Statistics content difficulty in the FMC?  What is the extent of students' perception of the Mechanics content difficulty in the FMC?  What is the extent of students' perception of the Operations Research content difficulty in the FMC?  What is the extent of students' perception of the FMC content difficulty?

Methodology
The descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study. The study was conducted in Gokana local government area of Rivers State, Nigeria with a population of sixty (60) senior secondary class three students offering Further Mathematics from the twelve (12) public senior secondary schools in the area. The senior secondary class three students constituted the population of the study because the study was interested in assessing the perception of difficulty of students who had been taught most of the Further Mathematics curriculum contents. Further Mathematics is optional and few schools and students offer the subject. Census sampling technique was used to select all the 60 students in the population of the study used for the study as sample. The census sampling technique was deemed fit for this study because the elements of the population was small for selection to be carried out. The instrument for data collection was the researchers' made Further Mathematics Curriculum Content Difficulty Assessment Questionnaire (FMCCDAQ). The FMCCDAQ consisted of 263FMC contents patterned after the four-point Likert rating scale of Very Difficult (VD) -4 points, Difficult (D) -3 points, Easy (E) -2 points and Very Easy (VE) -1 point with a criterion mean of 2.50.The decision rule was: Difficult content (mean≥ 2.50); Easy content (mean< 2.50). The FMCCDAQ had two sections. Section A and section B. Section A was used to elicit demographic information such as class and gender from the respondents while section B was used to obtain the response of the respondents on their perception of the

Assessment of the Extent of Student Perception of the Pure Mathematics Content Difficulty in the FMC
Data in table 1 revealed that students perceived the pure mathematics content of the FMC difficult to learn (M=2.82; SD=0.98). Table 1 also showed that the extent of student perception of the pure mathematics content difficulty in the FMC was high (75%). An analysis of topics perceived difficult by Nigerian students and teachers in secondary school Further Mathematics curriculum by Ifamuyiwa (2014) revealed that some topics in pure mathematics such as differential (differentiation) and integral (integration) calculus were difficult with students to learn.

Determination of the Extent of Student Perception of the Coordinate Geometry Content Difficulty in the Fmc
Data in table 2 revealed that students perceived the coordinate geometry content of the FMC difficult to learn (M=3.08; SD=0.99). Table 2 also showed that the extent of student perception of the coordinate geometry content difficulty in the FMC was high (100%). Wonu and Zalmon (2017) diagnosed coordinate geometry as one of students 'common learning difficulties in geometry. Zalmon and George (2018) reported that students perceived geometry and introductory calculus themes difficult to learn. Further study by Iji and Omenka (2015) identifiedthe contents in the coordinate geometry theme that students perceived difficult to learn as equation of parabola in rectangular Cartesian coordinate and equation of ellipse in rectangular Cartesian coordinate.

Ascertainment of the Extent of Student Perception of the Statistics Content Difficulty in the FMC
Data in table 3 showed that students perceived the statistics content of the FMC difficult to learn (M=3.00; SD=0.99). Table 3 also revealed that the extent of student perception of the statistics content difficulty in the FMC was high (88%). Wonu and Zalmon (2017) noted earlier that students have difficulties in learning to use the histogram to estimate the mode, differentiate between bar chart and histogram, estimate quartiles and percentiles, using ogive, calculating standard deviation and representing information in a diagram.

The Extent of Student Perception of the Mechanics Content Difficulty in the FMC
Data in table 4 showed that students perceived the mechanics content of the FMC difficult to learn (M=2.77; SD=1.11). Table 4 also revealed that the extent of student perception of the mechanics content difficulty in the FMC was high (78%). Iji and Omenka (2015) identified the contents in the mechanics theme that students perceived difficult to learn as motion of connected particles, polygon of forces, trajectory of projectile and moment of force (2 and 3 force) acting at a point.

Students' Perception of the Operations Research Content Difficulty in the FMC
Data in table 5 showed that students perceived the operations research content of the FMC difficult to learn (M=3.27; SD=1.02). Table 5 also revealed that the extent of student perception of the operations research content difficulty in the FMC was high (100%). An analysis of topics perceived difficult by Nigerian students and teachers in secondary school Further Mathematics curriculum by Ifamuyiwa (2014) also revealed that the operations research theme was difficult with students to learn. Iji and Omenka (2015) revealed that the perceived learning difficulty in operations research was due to lack of adequate instructional materials.

Assessing the Extent of Student Perception of the FMC Content Difficulty
Data in table 6 showed that students perceived the Further Mathematics curriculum content difficult to learn (M=2.99; SD=1.02). Table 6 also revealed that the extent of student perception of the Further Mathematics curriculum content difficulty was high (88.20%). Earlier study by Mills (2011) revealed that more than 30% of students in schools today have significant difficulties in learning Further Mathematics in spite of normal intelligence. Mills (2011) attributed this learning difficulty mainly to students' inadequate preparation and ineffective early education in the underlying basic mathematical operations that are required for Mathematics studies at their current level. Iji and Omenka (2015) identified the Further Mathematics contents perceived difficult with students as coordinate geometry, mechanics and operations research.

Conclusion
The study concluded that students' perception of content difficulty in the Further Mathematics curriculum was high(88.20%) and that the difficulty was in all the FMC themes of Pure Mathematics (75%), Coordinate Geometry (100%), Statistics (88%), Mechanics (78%) and Operations Research (100%).

Recommendations
Based on the findings the study recommended as follows:  The Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC) should carry out a holistic review of the Further Mathematics curriculum in view of students' high perception of its content difficulty.  Public school proprietors and educational administrators should ensure instructional effectiveness through adequate provision of learning resources including qualified Further Mathematics teachers and training and retraining of in-service Further Mathematics teachers through sponsorship to attend workshops, seminars, symposia and conferences.  Students should be encouraged to develop positive attitudes towards learning Further Mathematics through diligence and improved study habit.