Identifikasi proses berpikir siswa dalam menyelesaikan masalah aljabar dengan menggunakan representasi graf

One of the uses of graph representation was to describe students’ thinking. Processes by identifying the relationship between one completion step and another completion step in doing mathematics problems. This qualitative descriptive research aimed to describe the representation of students’ thinking processes in solving algebraic questions with the help of graph representation. The subjects of this study were 3 from 38 students of class IX-A at SMP Negeri 26 Surabaya, Indonesia selected through snowball sampling. Data was collected from task-based interview methods. The task or problem given was two open-ended questions and the results were analyzed as well as represented through graphs: binary tree graph, spanning tree graph, and decision tree graph. The results showed that through the binary tree graph, the representations of students’ thinking processes were still simple and not systematic with few steps to complete. Through the spanning tree graph, students’ thinking processes were represented practically, completely, and precisely. Through the decision tree graph, students’ thinking processes were represented in an orderly, detailed, and consecutive.