The written mathematical communication ability of junior high school students in solving set problems

Abstract

Abstract Written mathematical communication helps students in the learning process, helps teachers to assess students’ understanding, and becomes the link between the known and the written information with the understood information. The concept of understanding or procedures will be more meaningful if the students can communicate their ideas well. The study aims to describe and analyze students’ written mathematical communication abilities. This research is a qualitative descriptive study. The researchers employ tests and interviews in collecting data. The validity of the data uses the triangulation method. The results reveal that the students who have high communication ability can reach written communication indicators even though not all indicators are achieved correctly. The students who don’t have high communication ability face difficulty in expressing ideas in the form of mathematical symbols/notations so that they use meaningless notation. Meaningless notations are written based on the known information in the task and the results of students’ thinking when they experience difficulties. These students also have not been able to use algebraic expressio ns and draw conclusions correctly. They directly write the results of the answers without the procedure. They state that concluding is unnecessary. Overall, the students who have high, medium, and low ability can draw Venn diagrams even though the diagram is improper.