Students’ mathematical understanding ability using contextual teaching and learning approach

Abstract

Students’ mathematical understanding ability is one of the students’ compulsory competences in learning mathematics. In the learning process, students commonly hesitated to ask the teacher how to solve mathematical problems even though they did not understand the lesson. This research aimed to improve the mathematical understanding ability by applying Contextual Teaching and Learning (CTL). This study employed a qualitative approach using True Experimental Design. This paper explained that the experimental result of students’ mathematical understanding ability used Contextual Teaching and Learning (CTL). The test of mathematical understanding ability was administered to Year 7 students of one of the junior high school in Sigli, Pidie. The instrument was a mathematical understanding ability test. The data analysis showed that the result of the normality test scores of the students’ mathematical understanding ability of the experimental class and the control class were 0.288 and 0.125. This research found that learning by using CTL indicated to improve the students’ mathematical ability. Mathematics teachers can apply CTL in the learning as an effort of developing students’ mathematical understanding ability in other algebra lessons.