Realistic mathematics education: an alternative to improve students’ understanding of fraction concept

Mathematics is a material that is considered difficult by students in learning mathematics so that students find difficulties in understanding concepts, especially the concept of fraction. Some students see fraction as whole numbers but only as a symbol that needs to be manipulated in various ways. The main factors that led to students’ difficulties in understanding the concept of fraction are more frequent student to memorize than to build an understanding of the concept. Another factor is the approach used by the teacher is not oriented to the real world where the situation can be imagined by the students. Alternative approaches that can be used as a solution is a realistic mathematics education approach. This study tries to examine students’ understanding of fraction concept through a realistic mathematic education approach by reviewing literatures. Through a realistic mathematics education approach, students had a chance to develop their knowledge by expressing their ideas during the learning process. Students were also able to imagine various situations occurred in a mathematical problems because those problems were in a real situation problems related to students’ life