EXPLORING MATHEMATICAL REPRESENTATIONS IN SOLVING ILL-STRUCTURED PROBLEMS: THE CASE OF QUADRATIC FUNCTION

Abstract

Mathematical representation has an essential role in solving mathematical problems. However, there are still many mathematics education students who have difficulty in representing ill-structured problems. Even though the ill-structured-problem-solving tasks designed to help mathematics education students understand the relevance and meaningfulness of what they learn, they also are connected with their prior knowledge. The focus of this research is exploring the used of mathematical representations in solving ill-structured problems involving quadratic functions. The topic of quadratic functions is considered necessary in mathematics teaching and learning in higher education. It's because many mathematics education students have difficulty in understanding these matters, and they also didn’t appreciate their advantage and application in daily life. The researchers' explored mathematical representation as used by two subjects from fifty-four mathematics education students at the University of Nusantara PGRI Kediri by using a qualitative approach. We were selected due to their completed all steps for solving the ill-structured problem, and there have different ways of solving these problems. Mathematical representation explored through an analytical framework of solving ill-structured issues such as representing problems, developing alternative solutions, creating solution justifications, monitoring, and evaluating. The data analysis used technique triangulation. The results show that verbal and symbolic representations used both subjects to calculate, detect, correct errors, and justify their answers. However, the visual representation used only by the first subject to detect and correct errors.