Enhancing students’ ability to solve word problems in Mathematics

Abstract

Abstract Word problems are the most important thing in learning in Indonesia. Most of the students met the problems. This research aims to enhance the students’ability in the difficulties of students in solving word problems in social arithmetic. This research is qualitative. Researchers collected data through tests, interviews, and documentation. Data analysis techniques included data collection, data reduction, display (data), and concluding. The results showed that the difficulties in solving word problems in social arithmetic were difficulties in understanding the problems, namely the inability of students to translate the problem that is not able write down what is known and asked; difficulties in transformation, i.e. the inability of students to determine the formula for solving arithmetic problems social; difficulties in the settlement process, namely the inability of students in students perform arithmetic operations to solve the social arithmetic problem. Factors which causes students difficulty that is lazy to read too long questions, difficult to digest words in a problem, lack of student interest in learning mathematics, a way of learning for students who tend to memorize the material so the concept does not clear, students rarely practice the questions, do not understand the counting operations well, motivation low learning, a less conducive classroom, and learning strategies.