Abstract:

Learners’ poor performance in physical science is a major problem worldwide and in South Africa particularly in Motheo District. Department of Basic Education in South Africa invested a lot of money in terms of developing teachers through workshops and science clinics for learners to prepare them for physical science content in the new curriculum called Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statements and learners are still not performing well in physical science. Studies have been conducted on poor performance in Physical Science, but learners’ performance remained poor. This study is aimed at determining factors contributing to poor performance in physical science learners in selected secondary schools around Motheo District. The specific objectives are to investigate learner’s attitude towards Physical Science, the effect of home background on the performance of learners in Physical Science and learner teacher ratio in Physical Science. A descriptive survey focused on Grade 12 learners and teachers teaching Physical Science. Random stratified sampling was used to select four secondary schools in Motheo District. Simple random sampling was used to select 20 students and 2 teachers from each school sampled. Data was collected using a questionnaire and it was analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. Qualitative analysis involved making inferences from teachers and learners responses from the questionnaire and thematic analysis was used to analyze data. Quantitative analysis made use of descriptive statistics such as percentages and frequencies. The findings of this study would be of significance to the teachers, learners and subject advisors with regard to improvement of physical science performance. The results of the study found that home background had a negative effect on learner performance in physical science and learners have a negative attitude towards Physical Science. It was found that learner teacher ratio is also a great factor contributing towards poor performance in physical science.

Keywords:

Caps, Performance, Content.