TEACHING ORGANIC CHEMISTRY TO UPPER-SECONDARY STUDENTS HASN’T BEEN EASY: A CONVERSATION WITH TEACHERS AND STUDENTS ON BARRIERS

A lot more students’ difficulties in learning organic chemistry, as a component of upper secondary chemistry, have been reported in the literature. Some reasons have been assigned to these students’ learning difficulties in organic chemistry. Hence, in this research, we explored the barriers to effective teaching of organic chemistry in upper-secondary schools, through a phenomenological qualitative method. In this phenomenological research, we explored participants' understanding, perceptions, and experiences of barriers to effective teaching of organic chemistry. In phenomenology, 14 students and nine chemistry teachers were purposely sampled for conversations to share their experiences regarding barriers to effective teaching of organic chemistry. That is, data were collected using Organic Chemistry Students’ Interview Guide and Organic Chemistry Teachers’ Interview Guide. The qualitative data were thematically analysed. The barriers identified were self-tuition challenge, concept overload, pace of teaching, teacher support, introduction to organic chemistry, experiment materials, student attitude, and lack of opportunity. The implications for further research, practice, policy, and decision making were made. Keywords: chemistry teachers, educational strategies, learning organic chemistry, qualitative methods, teaching organic chemistry