Characteristic profile of analytical thinking in mathematics problem solving

Abstract

Analytical thinking is a thinking ability to help individuals in solving problems of mathematics. It is important for understanding the parts of situation, the ability to scrutinize and breakdown facts. However, there is a differentiation or variation in the way to solve these problems. The differentiation or variation is described as the characteristics of analytical thinking. The characteristics consisted of pre-analytical, partial-analytical, semi-analytical, and analytical. This study aims at describing analytical thinking characteristic profile of high school students in problem solving using two dimension materials. This is a qualitative study. The participants of this study are two high ability students at the eleventh grade of Public Senior High School 1 Kedungwaru Tulungagung. Think Aloud Method is applied to collect the data. The findings showed that the high-ability students have pre-analytical thinking characteristic when they are understanding the problems, planning the steps, and checking back the answer, and they have semi-analytical and pre-analytical thinking characteristic when they are implementing the plan. As the conclusion, the high-ability students have two out of four analytical thinking characteristics, namely pre-analytic and semi analytic.