How Students Work With Pisa-Like Mathematical Tasks Using Covid-19 Context

Abstract

School students can use a sequence of contextual tasks to learn mathematics. We can use Covid-19 as a phenomenon or context to exploit in learning mathematics. This article describes how students learn with mathematical problems that adapted PISA tasks and used the Covid-19 context. This study involved 29 secondary-level students, 15 years old, and each has different levels of mathematical skills. We use three phases of design research as the research method. Data were collected using observation, interviews, and documents. Then, they were analyzed descriptively. The result showed there were ten problems developed, and students were asked to work with those problems. We found that there are steps in how students understand and solve the problem. First, if students find a picture in the task, then they observe at the picture, read the question, and then start working to solve the problem. Second, if students find a table with less data, students refer to all data in solving the problem. Third if students find a table which has a lot of data, then some students calculate all of the data and other only compared among them. We’d like to encourage students to understand the problem before solving the problem. They do this by observing the pictures, comprehending the tables and also the questions.

Anxiety as a prevailing factor of performance of university mathematics students during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…The lack of open, non-digital communication between students, for the exchange of ideas, opinions, homework, among others, generates a desire for communication. Faced with this situation, as Liu et al [32], Aning and Baharum [33], Zulkardi et al [34] early strategies are necessary for the prevention and treatment of the psychological effects that a pandemic such as COVID-19 can create. These results lead to the conclusion that, in the process of mathematical anxiety, the alternative explanation for these statistical behaviours is because the descriptors are related to each other in a limited way.…”

Designing Pisa-Like Mathematics Task Using a Covid-19 Context (Pisacomat)

“…When mathematical content focuses on the situations closed to students, their mathematical thinking emerges naturally. In line with Kohar et al (2019) and Zulkardi et al (2020), the use of context directs students to think mathematically because their potentials for the mathematical thinking process occur from the given situation. Furthermore, using context will provoke students to be involved in collaborative learning, and thus, the learning is meaningful .…”

“…Utilizing context in a mathematical problem can attract and stimulate students to initiate learning (Van Galen & Van Eerde, 2018;Nusantara & Putri, 2018;Zulkardi & Putri, 2019). Context is a phenomenon or situation in real life where mathematics problems are embedded and lead students to think mathematically (Kohar, Wardani, & Fachrudin, 2019;Zulkardi et al, 2020). An example of an ongoing prevalent situation impacting all aspects of global life and students' academic activities is the COVID-19 pandemic (Bakker & Wagner, 2020).…”

“…Many studies on PISA items continuously developed, used multiple contexts such as Asian Games 2018 , the COVID-19 context, i.e. focused on students' working process (Zulkardi et al, 2020), reasoning and argumentation processes (Nusantara, Zulkardi, & Putri, 2020a), mathematization process (Nusantara, Zulkardi, & Putri, 2020b). Other studies focused on difficulty levels (Ahyan, Zulkardi, & Darmawijoyo, 2014;Meryansumayeka, Zulkardi, Putri, & Hiltrimartin, 2020).…”

Students' Numeracy Skills Relating to Algebra Topic Using COVID-19 Context

“…The use of the context that is trending, in this case, the context of covid-19, namely the plan of the isolation room for covid-19 patients, from the results of the student interviews it was said that besides attracting students' attention because they were often discussed, it is also new information that students get after working on questions, information obtained from students where 3 out of 4 students just know the shape of the isolation room in the hospital, while one student already knows because the student has been isolated in the hospital. This research is also relevant to (Zulkardi et al, 2020) which used Covid-19 as context.…”