EXPLORING PROBLEM SOLVING ON COMPARISON MATERIAL BASED ON STUDENTS GENDER IN GRADE VIII AT SMPN 3 PAREPARE

Mathematics Education Postgraduate Program Universitas Negeri Makassar, Indonesia e-mail: math_umpar@yahoo.co.id ABSTRACT This study is qualitative research which aims at exploring problem solving on comparison material based on students’ gender. The research instrument was the researcher herself as the main instrument guided by task of comparison problem solving with task based interview. The research subjects were the students of grade VIII consisted of one female subject and one male subject. The results of the study reveals that the problem solving on comparison material of female subject was the female subject solved the presented problem by following four steps of Polya’s problem solving theory, namely understanding the problem step, planning the problem solving step, conducting problem solving plan step, and reviewing the obtained solution step; the problem solving on comparison material of male subject was the male subject solved the presented problem by following two steps of Polya’s problem solving theory, namely planning the problem solving step and conducting problem solving plan step. The problem solving on comparison material based on gender was the female subject was able to explain and write the problem solution process given coherently, systematic, and complete started from understanding the problem step to reviewing the solution step, in this case the female subject followed each Polya’s problem solving step; whereas, the male subject was short and directly went to the implementation of problem solving plan step. In terms of the result, the male subject did the question with accurate result compared to the female subjects. Based on the aforementioned results, the problem solving done by students can be a reference in developing Mathematics learning model to improve problem solving skills of students based on gender and can be a benchmark for further study. Keywords: problem solving, gende