IMPROVING MATHEMATICAL UNDERSTANDING AND COMMUNICATION SKILLS AND STUDENTS’ LEARNING SELF-RELIANCE IN JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL USING CONTEXTUAL APPROACH

Abstract

This research is purposed to see the effect of a Contextual Approach in improving not only students’ understanding and communication ability but also their self-reliance in learning mathematics. The method used in this research is quasi-experiment with non-equivalent control group design. This research has been carried out at one junior high school in Cianjur with all of its ninth classes as the population. Out of these classes, two classes are taken as the samples, namely the experimental class and the control class. The Instrument used in this research is a set of tests to evaluate the students’ mathematical communication and understanding skills which have been tested beforehand. The data are obtained through the exposure of these mathematical understanding and communication skills tests. In processing the data, t-test, two-lane ANOVA, and regression have been administered. The result of the research shows that the students' mathematical understanding and communication in experiment class have improved and are better than the control class. The result has also shown that there is not any relationship between mathematical understanding skill and learning self-reliance. However, the result shows that there is a correlation between mathematical communication skill and learning self-reliance.