INCOMPREHENSION OF THE INDONESIAN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL STUDENTS ON FRACTION DIVISION PROBLEM

Yoppy Wahyu Purnomo; Chairunnisa Widowati; Syafika Ulfah

doi:10.22460/infinity.v8i1.p57-74

INCOMPREHENSION OF THE INDONESIAN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL STUDENTS ON FRACTION DIVISION PROBLEM

Yoppy Wahyu Purnomo ^(1*)
Chairunnisa Widowati ⁽²⁾
Syafika Ulfah ⁽³⁾

(1) (SCOPUS ID: 56311092100) Universitas Muhammadiyah Prof. Dr. HAMKA, Jakarta, Indonesia
(2) Universitas Negeri Jakarta
(3) Universitas Muhammadiyah Prof. DR. HAMKA
(*) Corresponding Author

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to investigate the Indonesian students’ performance in solving fraction division case including the difficulties, relations, and implications for classroom instruction. This study employed a descriptive case study to achieve it. The procedures of data collecting were initiated by giving a context-based problem to 40 elementary school students and it then according to the test result was selected three students for semi-structure interviewed. The findings of the study showed that the tendency of students’ procedural knowledge dominated to their conceptual knowledge in solving the fraction division problem. Furthermore, it was found several mistakes. First, the students were not accurate when solving the problem and unsuccessful to figure out the problem. Second, students’ conceptual knowledge was incomplete. The last was is to apply the laws and strategies of fraction division irrelevant. These findings emphasized other sub-construct of fractions instead of part-to-whole in the teaching and learning process. Teaching and learning of fraction in the mathematics classroom should take both conceptual and procedural knowledge into account as an attempt to prevent faults and misconceptions. In conclusion, it was substantial to present context-based problems at the beginning of the lesson in order for students to be able to learn fraction division meaningfully.

Keywords

Fraction division; Fractional parts; Conceptual knowledge; Procedural knowledge; Elementary school students; Indonesia

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.22460/infinity.v8i1.p57-74