Capturing Translation Representation Schema of Students Through Ill-Structured Problems Task

Abstract

Translation of mathematical representation is one of the important aspects of mathematics problem solving because the accuracy of mathematical representation translation is one of the terms of success in solving a problem. This research purposed to explore how the schema of mathematical representation translation among multiple representations type of junior high school students in solving well-structured problems and ill-structured problems. The participants were 132 8th students in Junior High School (SMP) in Kediri. The participant was then taken two students who completed a step for solving the problems as subjects. This study used qualitative explorative methods, with researchers conducting in-depth interviews with subjects to explore mathematical representation translation processed when solving well-ill social arithmetic problems. Data were analyzed by technique triangulation. Based on data analysis, the researchers found that: 1) both subjects failed to solve ill-structured problems because their translation of mathematical representation didn’t accurate. Subject-1 can’t unpack the source when problem representation. While subject-2 can’t determine equivalence between source representation and target representation, and 2) they found that both subjects have inconsistent representation translation schematic when solving an ill-structured problem. From the founded, the researcher concluded that ill-structured problems must often be given to students to practice their representation translation capabilities. Keywords: Translation, Mathematical Representation, Ill-Structured Problem Solving