This study is concerned with the persistent underperformance of secondary school students in Nigeria in physics. The study was conducted in two phases. Phase one was a survey of difficult concepts in physics, while phase two explored the potency of culturo-techno-contextual approach (CTCA) in breaking the barriers to meaningful learning of refractive indices, which ranked the most difficult concept in phase one of the study. A total of 1621 SS3 students from Nigeria and Ghana participated in the survey phase. The second phase employed a mixed-methods approach (quasi-experimental and interviews) with a total of 205 SS1 students. The control group was taught with the lecture method and had 96 students (54 males; 42 females), while the experimental group, taught with CTCA, had 109 students (65 females; 44 males). Both groups had a pretest and posttest using the achievement test in refractive indices; treatment lasted four weeks. Data gathered in the survey were analyzed using mean rank analysis, and refractive indices was perceived as the most difficult to learn. Phase two data were analyzed using one-way ANCOVA since intact classes were used. The result obtained showed that the experimental group performed better (mean for experimental = 15.49; control 11.97; F (1, 202) = 64.48; p < 0.01)) than the control group. Implications of the study are highlighted and the need for further studies is recommended.

The general apathy towards the study of physics education among the prospective science teachers can once again be raised as the National Open University of Nigeria marks its 15th years of providing functional, cost effective and life-long education to a very large number of Nigerians yearning for university education. Physics Education is arguably one of the few courses that gain the lowest patronage among science students across Nigerian universities. Hence, the discouraging phenomenon of low enrollment is not peculiar to NOUN. The case also becomes more disturbing when the study of physics education in an open and distance-learning environment becomes much more abstract than where you actually see the lecturer each time there is a class as it operates in the conventional university system. The challenge of sustaining physics education in the open and distance environment needs to be addressed towards improving enrollment of students into the programme. The paper has adopted a theoretical approach which examined the sequence of events as regard physics education in the past fifteen years of the existence of the National Open University of Nigeria. The challenges and prospects of this programme, which is at the centre of the nation’s scientific and technological independence were critically x-rayed in the light of current realities. Within the proposed set of recommendations, it was further suggested that the NOUN advocacy team, in collaboration with the Department of Science Education should take sensitization and awareness campaign to secondary school science students particularly on the prospects of enrolling into physics education programme.

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The need to scale-up physics students' interest in learning the concept of electricity at the senior secondary school level has remained a concern for physics educators. This study examined the influence of practical electronics activities as an intervention towards raising the students' interest in learning electricity related topics in physics. A nonexperimental design of causal-comparative research type was adopted while multi-stage sampling procedure was used to select 280 senior secondary III (SS3) physics students from Education District II in Lagos State. A self-developed questionnaire titled "Students Interest Scale on Learning the Concept of Electricity (SIS-LCE)" was administered to capture the demographic profile of the students and their interest in learning the concept of electricity. The ordinal alpha reliability coefficient yielded a value of 0.88. Descriptive statistics of mean and standard deviation were used in the analysis while independent Sample t-test was deployed to test the hypothesis at 0.05 significance level. Findings showed that students who engaged in practical electronics had higher interest in learning the concept of electricity than those who did not. Thus, the author recommends that practical electronics activities should be encouraged among physics students at the secondary school level.