The Spatial Thinking Process of the Field-Independent Students based on Action-Process-Object-Schema Theory

Henry Suryo Bintoro,Y.L. Sukestiyarno,Mulyono Mulyono,Walid Walid

doi:10.12973/eu-jer.10.4.1807

Abstract

<p style="text-align:justify">Spatial thinking has roles to facilitate learners to remember, understand, reason, and communicate objects and the connections among objects that are represented in space. This research aims to analyze the spatial thinking process of students in constructing new knowledge seen from the field-independent cognitive style learners based on Action-Process-Object-Schema (APOS) theory. APOS theory is used to explore spatial thinking processes which consist of mental structures of action, process, object, and schema. This research is qualitative research with an exploratory method. It provided the students' opportunity to solve problems alternately until the method found the most appropriate subjects for the research objectives. The subjects were 2 students of Mathematics Education in the fourth semester of Universitas Muria Kudus Indonesia. The data collection techniques were started by distributing the validated and reliable spatial thinking questions, the cognitive style question, and the interview. The applied data analysis consisted of data reduction, presentation, and conclusion. The findings showed (1) spatial thinking process of holistic-external representation typed learners were indicated by the representative thinking element, abstract-illustrative figure expression to communicate and complete the tasks correctly, (2) spatial thinking process of the holistic-internal representation typed learners were indicated by the representative means, having ideas, connecting with the previous knowledge in the forms of symbols and numbers, and finding the final results correctly although incomplete.</p>

Highlights

Understanding geometric materials require high visualization because of their abstract nature
The results showed that the correlation of spatial thinking process and the students’ skills to solve geometrical problems (Tikhomirova, 2017)
The researcher explored the students until he found a subject with holistic-external representation type and holistic-internal representation type

Summary

Introduction

Understanding geometric materials require high visualization because of their abstract nature. Learning geometry requires excellent understanding and conceptual reasoning to avoid difficulties. It is in line with (Gal, 2019). He found that students’ difficulties to learn geometry dealt with the gaps of geometrical thinking, hindrances to understand and reason the concept, or misunderstanding and visual perception limitation. The finding was in line with the fact. It showed low geometrical learning results (Bintoro et al, 2021; Schindler & Lilienthal, 2019; Zuliana et al, 2020)

Objectives

Methods

Discussion

Conclusion