THE PROFILE OF 10 GRADE STUDENTS’ MISCONCEPTION IN EXPONENTIAL DEPEND ON MATHEMATICAL ABILITY

Abstract

Abstract

Understanding the concept is an important aspect in mathematics learning. Every student has differences of  understanding the concept because every student has different mathematical ability. If every student can’t understanding the concept correctly, they will get difficulty when follow mathematics learning. The student difficulties in understanding the concept can make misconception. Misconception is a condition where student conception is different with scientific conception by scientist. This research was conducted in SMAN 1 Gedangan. This research was a qualitative descriptive research. The purpose of this research was to describe the profile of student grade 10^th students’ misconseption in exponential depend on students’ mathematical ability, namely high, medium, and low. Student misconception was analyzed based on the paper test result which is completed with CRI (Certainty of Response Index) instrument and the result of interview. The subjects of this research were six students which are consist of two students from each category of mathematical ability who had the most misconception. Based on the result of analysis, the students with high, medium, and low mathematical ability had misconceptions when determined the even power result of negative integers and misconceptions when applied a rule as a requirement of the fraction exponent concept. The students with medium mathematical ability also had misconceptions when converted the decimal expression to become the exponential expression. The students with low mathematical ability also had misconceptions when determined the power result of the multiplication of two numbers in the bracket.

Keywords: Misconception, Exponential Misconception, Mathematical Ability.