ABSTRACT

This research discusses the difficulties of undergraduate students of Mathematics Education to understand materials of 2^nd Calculus. The research questions are: (1) What are types of difficulties faced by students of Mathematics Education to understand materials of 2^nd Calculus? (2)What are factors caused the undergraduate students of Mathematics Education to have difficulty to understand materials of 2^nd Calculus?. This research aims to: (1) Describe the types of difficulties faced by undergraduate students of Mathematics Education to understand materials of 2^nd Calculus (2) Describe the factors causing the undergraduate students of Mathematics Education to have difficulty to understand materials of 2^nd Calculus.

This research is descriptive research with quantitative and qualitative approach. Subjects in this study were students who received the lowest score less than 45. They divided into three parts, the first part of the test results 0-15, the second part 16-30 and third part 31-45.  From each interval, it was taken one person as subject research.  The research instruments used were tests and interview guides. The data analysis techniques consisted of three stages, namely: data reduction, data presentation and conclusions.

Based on the existing literature review, Newman (1983) explained that the difficulties of learning mathematics primarily on mathematical problems can be classified into five difficulties, namely: difficulty of reading/decoding, difficulty of comprehending, difficulty of transforming into the form of mathematics (transformation), difficulty of processing (Process Skill), difficulty of writing solution/answer (Encoding). While the factors causing students to have difficulty in learning as those explained by Brueckner and Bond, Cooney, Davis, and Henderson (in Widdiharto: 2008) divided into five factors, namely: physiological, social, emotional, intellectual and pedagogical factors.

This research obtained the results of answers to the tests solved by research subjects (SP 1, SP 2 and SP 3) as in the following figure: