Keyword: partial understanding with misconceptions

ABSTRACT: Literature reports, chemistry teachers in Ghanaian high schools struggle conceptually in teaching organic chemistry. Pre-tertiary exposure, professional collaboration, professional competence, and tertiary exposure have been identified as the factors accounting for these challenges. This research studied the factor(s) that predict most of the teachers’ conceptual difficulties in teaching organic chemistry in high school. The findings can help researchers, Ministry of Education (MOE), Ghana Education Service (GES), and Teacher Education provide in-service teachers with necessary intervention or professional development and materials to improve organic chemistry teaching and learning. In a cross-sectional survey, 71 teachers were randomly sampled from 114 chemistry teachers teaching organic chemistry at the high school for the study. Data collected with tests and questionnaires were organised quantitatively and analysed using means, standard deviation and multiple regression. It came to bare that teachers have difficulties in organic chemistry and that the factors accounting for these difficulties are pre-tertiary exposure, tertiary exposure, professional collaboration and professional competence and the most predictive factor was tertiary exposure. Pre-tertiary exposure involves experiences and knowledge acquired before tertiary education, while tertiary exposure involves experiences and knowledge acquired during tertiary education. Professional collaboration involves continuous engagement in professional groups, sharing experiences, and knowledge, while professional competence involves using teaching resources and acquiring in-service training. The recommendation is for chemistry educators and researchers to develop innovative instructional strategies for effective teaching of organic chemistry at the tertiary level.