Teachers' perception of learning mathematics with medical waste management context

Abstract

This study aims to reveal teachers' perceptions of mathematics learning in the context of medical waste management. The study was conducted by surveying 54 mathematics teachers in Banda Aceh using a questionnaire based on three perceptual indicators made by researchers, namely cognition, affection, and conation. The data were analyzed by classifying the answers based on perceptual indicators. The results showed that all the teachers had a good perception of mathematics learning by utilizing medical waste management as a learning context. They believe that the context of medical waste management would encourage students to contribute to protecting the environment and foster positive attitudes in students. Nevertheless, some teachers think that the context of medical waste management is a context that is difficult to use in learning mathematics. Also, the teachers are difficult to use medical waste management as a context for learning mathematics and increase their workload. This is due to a lack of knowledge about the use of the context of medical waste management in mathematics learning caused by the limited training on learning mathematics in the context of medical waste management and the unavailability of the teaching materials and learning tools needed, besides requiring more time.