How to classify the diversity of seventh grade students mathematical process skills: An application of latent profile analysis

The researcher applied latent profile analysis to study the difference of the students’ mathematical process skill. These skills are problem solving skills, reasoning skills, communication and presentation skills, connection knowledge skills, and creativity skills. Samples were 2,485 seventh-grade students obtained from Multi-stage Random Sampling. Each student was measured by the mathematical process skills test which consists of 44 items in total. The research results indicated that the students can be categorized into three groups: the high mathematical process skills students (2.74%), the moderate mathematical process skills students (40.48%), and the low mathematical process skills students (56.78%). Moreover, from the research results, it also shows that the creativity skills seem to be the problem in every group of students. The detail of the research findings has been discussed in this paper. Key words: Latent profile analysis, mathematical process skills, problem solving skills, reasoning skills, communication and presentation skills, connection knowledge skills, creativity skills.