The identification of students’ didactic obstacles in learning fractions based on the form of the problems

Abstract

This study aims at knowing whether there are didactic obstacles in learning fractions of students in Yogyakarta based on the form of the problems. Those problems include visual, narrative, and symbolic forms. Materials of fractions consist of the concepts of fractions, equivalent fractions, the order of fractions, decimals, percents, addition of fractions, subtraction of fractions, multiplication of fractions, and division of fractions. The method of this study is survey with expost facto approach. The populations are students of Junior High School grade VII in Yogyakarta. The samples are 151 students from four schools in Yogyakarta. The choice of sample is done by stratified proportional random sampling technique. The instrument is diagnostic test with 27 questions that divide into 9 visual forms, 9 narrative forms, and 9 symbolic forms. Based on the result, students have didactic obstacles in visual forms and narrative forms. While in symbolic forms, students did not have didactic obstacles.