The aim of this study is to find out whether high school students believe that they have difficulties in the process of learning physics and to reveal the reasons of these difficulties, if any, by taking into account the type of high school they study at. A total of 188 high school students constituted the participants of the research, which is a descriptive case study with a qualitative approach. Approximately 6% of the participants stated that they had no difficulty in the process of learning physics while 94% stated that they had difficulty. The opinions of the participants regarding the reasons of these difficulties were analysed through content analysis considering the type of high school they study at. The findings obtained indicated that the difficulties faced by the participants in the process of learning physics were caused by four main reasons including content-based, individual-based, teacher-based and environment-based factors. The participants studying at Science and Anatolian High Schools stated that they mostly had content-based problems, while the participants studying at Vocational High School reported that they experienced difficulties due to individual-based factors in the process of learning physics. It is believed that the results obtained from the present study will contribute to the studies to be conducted in order to increase student success in physics education.

Physics, learning process, high school student, high school type