IMPROVING STUDENT LEARNING: MATHEMATICAL REASONING ABILITY THROUGH A REALISTIC MATHEMATIC EDUCATION

Abstract

This research is motivated by the problem, not the maximum level of students' mathematical reasoning abilities. The purpose of this study was to determine the improvement of students' reasoning abilities with realistic mathematics education. This type of research is a quasi-experimental study to examine the improvement of students' mathematical reasoning abilities through a realistic mathematical education. The instrument used is a test item consisting of a test of mathematical reasoning ability and an attitude scale given to students. In this study, data were obtained to see the increase in students' reasoning abilities with realistic mathematics education in mathematics learning and to see student responses to learning using realistic mathematics education which were analyzed by processing test results data, namely testing homogeneity, testing hypotheses, and testing average differences. mean in both groups using t-test. The conclusion obtained in this study is that in the group of students whose learning using a realistic mathematics education the average score of students increased by 41.1%, while the increase in the average score of the group of students whose learning was conventional was only 17.3%. The number of students who scored above 60% in the group of students whose learning using a realistic mathematics education in the final test had reached 88.65%, while in the group of students whose learning was conventional it only reached 45.79%, meaning that the achievement of the group of students who studied with realistic mathematics education increases significantly when compared to the group of students who learn conventionally.

Keywords

• student learning
• mathematical reasoning ability
• realistic mathematic education