Misconceptions of seventh grade students in solving geometry problem type national examinations

Abstract

The general aim of mathematics is stated as making an individual acquire the mathematical knowledge needed in the daily basis, teaching how to solve problems, making him/her have a method of solving problems and acquiring reasoning methods. For this purpose to acquire mathematical concepts one should be able to visualize the mathematics problems. In other words, mathematics is the field in which preconditions are crucial so before the teaching process student backgrounds on the subject should be tested. The principal aim of this study is to find the weaknesses of secondary school students at geometry questions of measures, angles, and shapes in SMP N 2 Pundong. The year 7 curriculum contains 4 geometry topics out of 17 mathematics topics. In addition to this, this study aims to find out the mistakes, 7th-grade students made in solving geometry problem type national examinations. To collect data, students were tested using 10 questions on geometry to analyze their problem-solving skills and to test how much they acquired the last academic year. Frequency distribution table were used in data analysis. A descriptive qualitative methodology and teacher interview were used in the study to analyze and interpret the results. The results from this study revealed that 7th-grade secondary school students have a number of misconceptions, lack of background knowledge, reasoning and basic operation mistakes at the topics mentioned. The misconceptions divide into three categories namely errors in using formula of geometry, errors in identifying the characteristic of planar figure, and errors in interpreting story problems in mathematical form.