THE IMPLEMENTATION OF DISCOVERY LEARNING IN THE MATHEMATICS TEACHING TO IMPROVE MATHEMATICS LEARNING MOTIVATION OF THE STUDENTS OF CLASS VIII OF SMPN 2 PENGASIH IN KULON PROGO REGENCY

This study aims at determining the implementation of the mathematics teaching using the Discovery Learning that can increase mathematics learning motivation of the students of class VIII B of SMP Negeri 2 Pengasih in Kulonprogo regency on the subject of the nets, surface area, and volume of cubes and blocks. This was classroom action research conducted collaboratively with the teacher. The subject of this research was the students of class VIII B of SMP N 2 Pengasih with 36 students. The research consisted of two cycles and each cycle consisted of three meetings. Data collection technique used observation, interviews, questionnaire, and tests. Data obtained were analyzed using data reduction, triangulation, data display, conclusion, and the descriptive data analysis for the data of observation and field notes. Based on the research results, it was concluded that the implementation of mathematics teaching through Discovery Learning could increase students' motivation with the teaching steps starting by: (1) presenting problems to the students in the form of student work sheets containing main subject matters being discussed completed with step-by-step instructions of the completion to get the conclusion; (2) Group discussion, students made groups and each consisted of four students, they discussed and collaborated in doing the worksheets; and (3) Presentations by group representatives, the representatives presented their group’s findings and conclusions. Based on the analysis results, there was increased students’ learning motivation after the implementation of the mathematics teaching using the method of discovery learning. The increased learning motivation could be seen from: (a) the measurement results of the students’ learning motivation with questionnaire, namely the average percentage of the students’ learning motivation before actions amounted to 61.76% in the medium category and 71.08% in the high category after actions; (b) the observation results of the students’ learning motivation has increased from 41.26% in the medium category in the first cycle to 56.03% with the high category in the second cycle; and (c) based on interviews, it could be concluded that the students’ learning motivation increased after the teaching using the discovery learning method