Fourth-Grade Primary School Students’ Misconception on Greatest Common Factor and Least Common Multiple

This study is aimed at determining students’ misconceptions on the teaching material of the greatest common factor and least common multiple. The sample of this study consisted of 124 fourth-grade elementary school students in the academic year of 2019–2020 in areas of Mataram, West Lombok, North Lombok, and East Lombok at West Nusa Tenggara Province. The instrument of this study is a test covering five questions in the form of open questions. The data are analyzed based on the students’ explanations while they answer the test. The students’ wrong answers are grouped into categories. The interview activities are carried out for students who have a misconception. Then, researchers create a table of frequencies/presentations relating to each type of students’ misconception. The results show that students experience misconceptions due to factors, including having a weak multiplication concept, having a weak prime number concept, determining the least common multiple of two numbers by multiplying the two numbers, and inability to distinguish between multiples and factors of a number. In light of the findings, a number of conclusions are obtained and several implications are put forward.