An Analysis of Undergraduate Students’ Difficulties in Mathematical Representations of Vector Addition
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.58466/j4mqpy39Keywords:
mathematical representation, vector addition, learning difficultiesAbstract
This study aims to describe students’ mathematical representation ability in vector addition and identify the difficulties they experience. The study employed a mixed methods approach with an explanatory sequential design. The participants consisted of 23 first-semester students from the Mining Engineering Study Program. Data were collected through written and oral tests and analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. The results showed that students’ mathematical representation ability had not developed evenly. A total of 43.48% of students were categorized as very good, 17.39% as good, 21.74% as fair, 13.04% as poor, and 4.35% did not provide answers. The difficulties identified included determining coordinates on the Cartesian plane, understanding vector addition operations, performing positive and negative number operations, visually representing vectors, and representing the result of vector addition. The oral test results revealed that these difficulties were caused not only by procedural errors but also by students’ weak ability to connect visual, symbolic, and verbal representations in an integrated manner. The findings indicate that students’ mathematical representation ability is still partial in nature. Therefore, mathematics instruction needs to emphasize the integration of multiple forms of representation through visualization, exploration, and translation among representations to strengthen students’ conceptual understanding of vectors comprehensively.
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