Mathematics Metacognitive Skills of Papua’s Students in Solving Mathematics Problems

Abstract

This research focuses on the analysis of mathematics metacognitive skills of Papua’s students in School of Indonesian Children (SIC) in solving mathematics learning problems. The research was conducted to provide a good quality education for Papuan students, so the research start the research from the metacognitive skills especially in mathematics. The respondents of the research are 6 students from grade VII of SIC. Those respondents are represent of higher mathematical ability, medium mathematical ability, and lower mathematical ability. The research used descriptive qualitative research method. Data collection procedures used in this research was in-depth interview and participant observation as well as documents related to metacognitive process in solving the problems in learning mathematics. The in-depth interview was with the respondents, the Principal, the mathematical teacher and the Character Building teacher. For documents related to metacognitive process in solving the problems in learning mathematics such as the result national exam in elementary, the result daily test of math, the result of quiz or homework. In general, the students in Papua were lack of mathematics metacognitive ability such as, lack of cognitive knowledge and cognitive regulation, sometimes they cannot perform the activities that reflects conscious metacognitive such as mathematics problem solving. The research result indicates that the structure metacognitive ability of students in Papua influences their problem solving ability in learning mathematics. This metacognitive ability is also influenced by the fact that it becomes their characteristics background as respondents from Papua.