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A number of national and international scale surveys showed that the mathematics achievements of Indonesian secondary school students were in the lower level. One of the indicators of this low achievement was the insufficient level of understanding of mathematical concepts of the students. Understanding of mathematical concepts could be integrated through Realistic Mathematics Education (RME). Therefore, the quasi-experimental study was conducted to examine the effectiveness of Realistic Mathematical Education towards the conceptual understanding of linear programming. The study also investigated the relationship between conceptual understanding and mathematics achievement and investigated the misconceptions on linear programming. This study involved 65 students of Madrasah Aliyah Negeri 1 Pekanbaru, Indonesia. Test conceptual understanding programming topics had Cronbach’s alpha reliability of 0.80. The data were collected by using a test question conceptual understanding of linear programming. Quantitative data analysis involved a descriptive and inferential analysis using SPSS 21.0. The descriptive analysis included the percentage, mean and standard deviation while inferential analysis involving independent t-test and Pearson correlation analysis. The results revealed that there were significant differences between the treatment and control groups toward conceptual understanding. There was a significant relationship between conceptual understanding and mathematics achievement of linear programming. Misconception toward linear programming for the treatment group was lower than the control group. The implications of this study were useful for educators to help their students to understand concept of mathematics through open and contextual questions so that the students though through the mathematics, not worked in the mathematics.
Hidayat et al. (Thu,) studied this question.