Transition from Arithmetic Thinking to Algebraic Thinking for Class VII State Junior High School Students. Dwi Endah Lestari (a*), Didi Suryadi (b), Dadang Juandi (c)
a) Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia
b) Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia
c) Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia
Abstract
Variables are formally studied by students when students learn about algebra. Before studying algebra, students have learned about arithmetic in elementary school which only focuses on thinking about the completion of an operation. While at the junior high school level students are guided to think abstractly in algebra learning. Therefore, there is a transition of thinking from arithmetic thinking to algebraic thinking. In previous studies, there were 4 indicators that made the process of transitioning from arithmetic thinking to algebraic thinking to students good, but not yet explained any factors from the difficulty of transitioning arithmetic thinking to algebraic thinking. This study aims to describe the difficulties experienced by students in the transition from arithmetic thinking to algebraic thinking. The method used in this study is qualitative with a phenomenological approach with the data source of seventh grade junior high school students. The data of this research are in the form of student work and interviews. The results of this study indicate that there are 8 difficulties experienced by students: 1) Difficulty in interpreting operations and inverses- 2) Difficulty in recognizing the relationship of a mathematical expression- 3) Difficulty if numbers and letters are applied together as an algebraic expression structure- 4) Difficulty in interpreting the equal sign- 5) Difficulty in figuring out terms- 6) Difficulty changing story questions into mathematical sentences- 7) difficulties in the elimination method- 8) difficulty performing in substitution method
