Last modified: 2018-07-07
Abstract
The results of early study show that the mathematics teachers’ level of understanding on concept of limits are in unistructural and multistructural level. It is meant that majority teachers can use one or more information to solve the limits problems. Nevertheless, the teachers haven’t complexity of understanding to solve more complex limits problems. In other words, the teachers’ level of understanding of limits concept aren’t in extended abstract level.
Based on SOLO taxonomy, the level of understanding is divided to five levels. There are prestructural, unistructural, multistructural, relational, and extended abstract. The levels show understanding complexity of the mathematics concepts. Teachers should have high level of understanding in order to explain the detail concept to their students. This situation makes a reason to this study to identify the pre-service teachers’ level of understanding based on SOLO taxonomy.
This study is aimed to describe the pre-service teachers’ level of understanding on solving the limits problems. The limits problems are restricted on limits of sequence. This study is case study of pre-service teachers in Mathematics Education Department of Indraprasta PGRI University. Six pre-service teachers are selected to be subject by purposive sampling. Data are collected by using test and interview then analyzed qualitatively.
The results show that two pre-service teachers are in relational level. Both of them can identify the problems and relate it with their concept of limits of sequences to find the problems solution. Nevertheless, they can’t find the general principle and use it to solve the new relevant problem. It is meant that the level aren’t in extended abstract. In other side, the four other pre-service teachers’ are in multistructural level. Based on the results, this study is concluded that the pre-service teachers’ level of understanding on limit of sequence concept needs to be improved.