| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立嘉義大學 === 數理教育研究所 === 104 === This study aimed to investigate the middle school students’ errors in algebra and also to compare students’ performance between public and private school. In order to address those purposes, the quantitative research design was conducted to data collection process which involving the use of pencil-and-paper test. An algebra test which tested validity and reliability through pilot study, was given to 136 eighth grade students from public (80 students) and private school (56 students) in North Sumatera, Indonesia. The test contained questions from three main areas of algebra: Algebraic Operation, Linear Equation and Linear Inequality. Data analysis was done through descriptive and inferential statistics, particularly t-test.
The findings indicated several types of errors under each area. Specifically to the errors, the patterns of errors were examined to describe the students’ difficulties. The pattern of errors include variable error, operation error, fraction error, distributive property error, negative sign error, error in interpretation of word problem, equality error, and inequality error. The main conclusion of this study is that the errors that students made in this study are attributed to lack of arithmetic skills and also lack of conceptual knowledge. The comparison of public and private school showed that students’ performance in private school far better than students’ performance in public school. As the conclusion is that public and private school students’ performance were categorized in low and high level, respectively.
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