Students’ abilities in mathematical representation to solve mathematics problems

• Published in: AIP conference proceedings Vol. 3106; no. 1
• Main Authors: Utami, Nurul Audhifa, Sa’dijah, Cholis, Chandra, Tjang Daniel
• Format: Journal Article Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: Melville American Institute of Physics 24.05.2024
• Subjects: Conveying; Graphical representations; Mathematical tables; Mathematics; Students
• ISSN: 0094-243X; 1551-7616
• DOI: 10.1063/5.0215805

Mathematical representation is one of the fundamental abilities used in mathematics to build the connection between abstract ideas and logical thinking to understand and solve mathematics problems. The level of student representation ability will affect the way students convey the idea of solving mathematics problems. This shows how important this ability is in mathematics. But in fact, the ability of mathematical representation is felt to be less comprehensively mastered. This is indicated by the large number of students having difficulty conveying their ideas in solving mathematics problems. This paper describes students’ abilities in mathematical representation to solve math problems. The indicators for mathematical representation ability in this research are classified as verbal representation (written text), visual representation (picture, diagram, graph, or table), and symbolise representation (mathematical statement, numerical/algebra symbol, mathematical notation). The subject of this research was 8-grade students of one of the junior secondary schools at Bukittinggi. The results showed that 22 out of 34 students have difficulty in conveying their ideas to solve math problems, while the rest feel quite good about it.