WORD PROBLEMS OF CONIC SECTIONS: ANALYSIS OF LINGUISTIC DIFFICULTIES

Namirah Fatmanissa
1Ms., Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia, INDONESIA,namirahf@student.upi.edu

Abstract

Language has become an essential factor in students’ performance in solving word problems, especially in the topic that requires multiple representations of terms such as conic sections. This study describes findings on students’ language difficulties in word problems with the topic of conic sections. A test in the form of word problems was constructed, validated to mathematics expert, and then given to 28 students of 11-grade. Student’s work was analyzed from the perspective of linguistic difficulties by classifying each obtained case into three features of mathematics language difficulties, i.e. multiple semiotic systems, vocabulary, and grammar and syntax. It was found that multiple semiotic systems was the most found feature of linguistic difficulties, particularly in the difficulties of transforming language into mathematical symbol. Difficulty found in vocabulary feature was the difficulty in understanding technical term in conic sections, while in grammar and syntax feature was the difficulty in considering implicit meaning within word problem. This study concludes that the difficulties due to linguistics feature of mathematics are real and faced by students during word problem solving of conic sections. Those difficulties are found in various cases and the features correspond to them (i.e. multiple semiotic systems, vocabulary, and grammar and syntax) can be seen as separated or related to each other at the same time.

Keywords: language, mathematics word problems, conic sections, difficulty.