An onto-semiotic approach: Analyzing of field-independent and field dependent students’ understanding in solving statistical problems

Abstract

This article describes to analyzing of field-independent and field dependent students’ understanding in solving statistical problems used to onto-semiotic approach. The subject matter of field dependent and field independent cognitive styles. Explorative descriptive research was undertaken involving 30 senior high school students. Data was obtained through task-based interviews. The result of this study indicates that there is a difference of students’ understanding between field dependent and field independent students’ in solving mathematical problems when using onto-semiotic approaches based on language, concepts and procedures, while based on computational aspect, proposition and argument. Field independent students in solving statistical problems tend to use mathematical terms and symbols consistently, more analytically and unaffected by the given problem, and using correct settlement measures. Field dependent students’ tend to use maturing terms and symbols of math, tend not to be able to explain the related elements of concepts used in solving statistical problems and tend to have some correct steps of resolution. Thus the onto-semiotic approach is one of the innovations in learning mathematics to overcome student difficulties in solving statistical problems.