Abstraction Ability of Students About Fractions Through Local Cultural Approaches

Abstract

Fractions are concepts in mathematics which difficult for students to understand. Mathematical concepts are abstract. The purpose of this study was to describe students' abstraction abilities about fractions through a local cultural approach. It is exploratory research. The subjects of this study were 5 elementary school students. It is selected through a snowball technique. Task-based interviews were applied in this study. His job is to solve contextual problems about eating pizza in a family. In-depth interviews were conducted by researchers on research subjects. The result of the research is that students have reached the concept and principle of fractions correctly if the abstraction process starts from something close to the culture around the student. It is a horizontal mathematical process. Students are able to provide different but correct arguments to provide the right solution. The conclusion is that contextual problems trigger students to perform various abstraction processes. It can improve the ability to understand the concept of fractions.