The effect of comic-based realistic mathematics approach on students’ learning motivation and conceptual understanding

Abstract

Comics are reading material that is generally more desirable than textbooks by children, especially teenagers. Based on its characteristics, comics contain stories in the form of pictures and text which is contained in the balloons of text and presented in the panels. If the comic is presented in line with the application of a realistic mathematical approach, especially in learning mathematics, it hopes to create an interesting learning atmosphere for students. However, in this case, the contents of the comic story presented are in the form of learning about integers that are connected with a realistic mathematical approach. Therefore, this study aims to determine the effect of learning with comic-based realistic mathematical approaches on learning motivation and students’ understanding of mathematical concepts. This research is a quasi-experimental study. The population in this study was all the students of class VII of Junior High School of RK Serdang Murni Lubuk Pakam in the Academic Year of 2019/2020. While the sample was the class VII-1 as a control class of 31 students and class VII-2 as an experimental class of 32 students. The instruments in this study were two tests of the ability to understand the mathematical concepts and a learning motivation questionnaire. The normality test uses Liliefors test and the homogeneity test uses the Levene’s test with significance. The data were analyzed using the Manova test. Based on the data analysis, the results show that there was a significant effect of comic-based realistic mathematical approaches on students’ learning motivation and conceptual understanding of integer’s material.