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CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

1.1. Background

UU No. 20 of 2003 Chapter II article 3 of the National Education System state

it was disclosed that national education aims to develop the potential of students to
become human beings who believe and fear God Almighty, noble, healthy,
knowledgeable, competent, creative, independent and become citizens Democratic and
responsible country. (BSNPP: 2006). According statement to the above objectives, the
contribution of education to the country plays an important role in improving the
quality of human resources in the future. A quality education process will produce
education in accordance with the functions and objectives, but the actual issue that is
now emerging in the community is the low level of education in Indonesia that can be
seen from the results of research Trends in International Mathematics and Since Study
(TIMMS) 2015, for junior high and high school level that Indonesian students are only
ranked 36th out of 49 countries in terms of carrying out scientific procedures.
The low quality of education in Indonesia which can be seen from various sides
shows that the learning process has not been successful so far for this reason, a set of
supporting curriculum is needed to be given to students in the level of their respective
educational units where one of the subjects in the syllabus, both the first level up to
the college level is physics.
Conceptual understanding in science education curriculum in Indonesia can be
seen from graduate competency standards, core competencies, basic competencies and
science textbook. To achieve conceptual understanding, the learning activities use a
scientific approach and integrative learning which emphasize on meaningful learning
condition (Widiyatmoko, K.Shimizu (2017).
Physics learning in the 2013 curriculum emphasizes the improvement in students
'mastery of concepts, achievement of students' skills in problem solving, critical
thinking, science process skills, and attainment of attitudes, cooperation, curiosity, and
responsibilities of students. This implies that the curriculum in physics emphasizes the
pedagogical dimension in terms of understanding concepts.

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Understanding the concept is the ability of students in the form of mastery of a

number of subject matter, where students do not just know or remember a number of
concepts learned, but are able to re-express it in other forms that are easy to understand,
provide data interpretation and are able to apply concepts in accordance with the
cognitive structure they have. According to Widjajanti (2011:153) Indicators that can
be used to determine whether a student already has a conceptual understanding that is
capable: (1) Restate the concepts that have been learned; (2) Classifying objects based
on whether or not conditions are met to meet the concept; (3)Provide examples or non-
examples of concepts learned; (4) Presents concepts in various forms of mathematical
representation (4) Linking various concepts; and (5) Develop the necessary
requirements and/or sufficient requirements of a concept.
Physics Learning, Physics is not just about knowing its mathematically but
furthermore students must be able to understand the concepts contained in it, principles
and laws, write into physical parameters or symbols, and be able to understand
problems and solve them mathematically. then students are expected to be able to
rearrange in their own language in accordance with the level of maturity and
intellectual development.
The process of learning a person is influenced by many factors. Many
researchers agreed that students bring their preconceptions to class in science
education. Based on this, people believed physics is abstract. Many Physics students
have the wrong conception of the subject even before starting to learn it. Physics
students should be able to learn concepts in Physics and apply it. Conceptual
knowledge is essential for generation and selection of appropriate procedure in solving
a problem. Conceptual understanding permits students to transfer an explanation of a
phenomenon to different situations (Aina Jacob Kola: 2017). Therefore where students
can grasp ideas in a transferable way, can help students take what they learn in class
and apply it across domains to solve problems, especially in the field of physics.
Students are directed to search and discover themselves so that it can help to gain a
deeper understanding of physics in the natural environment. This becomes even more
important not only for students, but also for (prospective) educators, mentors and
instructors in managing and controlling the factors that influence learning so that
optimal learning processes can occur. Studying and understanding physics concepts is
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very important to do, while in reality there are still many students who experience
problems in studying physics at school. The problem that often arises is the occurrence
of students' misconceptions of the material being taught.
Factors that influence this misunderstanding can occur due to the environment,
the book used when learning, and the way the teacher explains the material.
Remembering that one of the characteristics of physics is based on previous knowledge
or experience. Then there will be a serious problem in the structure of students'
understanding of physics when misconceptions occur or even they do not understand
the concepts so that it becomes one of the causes of low student learning outcomes.
right to students so that the quantity and quality of student grades can be measured
properly to find out the extent to which learning can provide teaching and learning
processes run well, evaluation is needed. By using the evaluation results, the teacher
can reflect on himself so that he can improve learning in the future. This is certainly
very useful for improving education in Indonesia in general, and learning in the
classroom in particular. The evaluation given by the teacher is in the form of
conventional assessment. Examples of conventional assessments given to students
include: multiple-choice, matching, true-false, paper and pencil test.
Conceptual understanding in science learning has been the main concern of the
researchers in the science education field. Students’ conceptual understanding could
not be easily observed or measured. Teachers have to investigate students’
understanding before and after instruction. In order to measure students’ conceptual
understanding of several concepts in a science subject, various diagnostic tools have
been developed and used such as open-ended tests, interviews, and multiple choices
tests. Those are found to be the ones commonly employed in science education
research (Gurel et al., 2015). Based on the explanation above, it is very important for
teachers to immediately overcome the incomplete student understanding by
straightening student understanding, so that students' understanding becomes full. To
align students' understanding, the teacher needs to know in what part of students lack
or not understand the material. In addition it is also important to know who are the
students in the class who have an understanding concept or not. Therefore it is very
important for a teacher to identify misconceptions that arise in students so that a
measurement can be done to help students improve understanding of concepts so that
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they are more scientifically acceptable. For students' different levels of understanding
of a concept it is necessary to make a diagnosis of student understanding. In diagnosing
it will be very necessary to have a measuring instrument or diagnostic test that can
reveal this student's understanding. In 1988, Treagust tried to develop a measuring
instrument that could be used to diagnose students' understanding. The developed
measurement tool is a two-tier multiple choice test.
Evaluations in the form of two-tier multiple choice questions are still very few
by educators who use them, especially based on conducting interviews and
observations at SMA Negeri 3 Medan with Mrs. Faridah Hanum S.Pd and at SMA
Negeri 1 Percut Sei Tuan with Mr. MB Sianturi as educators in Physics. that the school
did not use the Two-tier multiple choice test evaluation type to measure students'
understanding of the concept, based on the results of interviews from educators they
still used written test evaluation questions in the form of essays or multiple choice
questions and the educator had never identified misconceptions among students.
The next problem students also sometimes answer multiple choice questions just
as long as guessing does not answer in earnest so that in this case the cause of concept
errors in students. In addition to the two-tier multiple-choice test, other diagnostic tests
have also been developed which are useful for identifying student misconceptions
namely, concept maps by Novak in 1996 and interviews by Carr in 1996 (Tuysuz,
2009). Compared to other methods, the multiple-level multiple choice test method is
easier to do because (Cullinane: 2011) suggests the inclusion of reasons at the second
level of the form of two-tier multiple choice question questions can be used to improve
students 'conceptual understanding and see students' abilities in giving reasons.
Two-tier multiple choice tests have advantages because in this test in addition to
students working on test items that express certain concepts students must also reveal
the reasons why choosing the answers. By expressing their reasons in answering each
question, the location of the misconception will occur. In addition, two-tier multiple-
choice tests are easy to implement and also easy for teachers to provide assessments
and can help students detect their ability to understand concepts and it's easier for the
teacher to score compared to other methods, so it's more useful for the teacher in the
class.
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Based on the facts that have been found by researchers, this makes researchers
increasingly want to know the level of concept understanding of SMA N 1 Percut Sei
Tuan students in conducting the learning process especially in physics learning
material and a development as a form of assessment of students' conceptual
understanding through a two-tier multiple choice test . So that on this occasion the
researcher took the title of the research, namely “Development of Two Tier Multiple
Choice Tests to Assess Students' Conceptual Understanding in Physics Learning
Assissted by Algodoo”.

1.2 Problem Identification

From the background of the problems that have been described above, found
several identification problems, namely:
a. Lack of conceptual understanding of high school students in physics
because they consider physics subjects difficult and boring
b. The assessment instruments in the form of notebook paper as a test sheet did
not cause much interest for high school students.
c. The assessment carried out is still not varied, innovative, and creative, so
the need for the development of assessment instruments that are varied,
innovative, and creative.

1.3 Problem Formulation

Based on the description from the background above, we get the following
problem formulations:
a. How to develop the validity (content, construct, criterion-related) of
two-tier multiple choice test instrument to identify students' conceptual
understanding of Newton’s law material about motion?
b. What are the characteristics of the two-tier multiple choice test to
identify students' conceptual understanding of Newton's law material
about motion?
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1.4 Problem Limitation

Based on the description from the background above, we get some problem
constraints from the following development research
a. The material examined is Newton's law material about motion with
reference to the competency standards and basic competency.
b. Two-tier multiple choice tests are used to find out students'
understanding of concepts.
c. The result of two-tier multiple choice test has alternative answers
(options) consisting of 1 correct answer and 4 incorrect answers as
distractors and has a reason/explanation of the correct option consisting
of 1 answer supporting the correct option and 4 wrong answers as a
trick.
d. The subjects of this study were students of class XI MIA 4 of SMA N
1 Percut Sei Tuan.

1.5 Research Objective

Based on the description from the background above, we obtain several

objectives from the following development research.
a. Describe and develop validity of the two-tier multiple choice test
instrument to identify student’s conceptual understanding of Newton's
law material about motion.
b. Know the characteristics of the two-tier multiple choice test to identify
students' conceptual understanding of Newton's law material about
motion.

1.6 Research Benefit

Based on the researcher's objectives to be achieved, this research is expected

to have several benefits, as follows:

1.6.1 Theoretical Benefit

Theoretically the results of this research are expected to be useful, namely:

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1. Provide guidelines for assessing students' conceptual understanding in a

two-tier multiple choice.
2. Contribute thoughts for the renewal of the two-tier multiple choice test to
assess students' conceptual understanding.
3. As a basis and reference in subsequent studies related to measuring
students' conceptual understanding using a two-tier multiple choice test.

1.6.2 Empiric Benefit

Empirically this research can be useful as follows:

1. For Students
As a test to test students the existence of this research can provide
challenges to work on problems in a new form, but still be able to
measure their cognitive abilities.
2. For Teachers
This two-tier multiple choice question can be used by the teacher to
identify students' misconceptions that occur in Newton's law material
and provide insight to the teacher's knowledge so that they are able to
develop test instruments that can be used to identify student concept
errors. As well as the information obtained by researchers can lead
educators to use and can develop their own evaluation of the same
problem.
3. For the School
As an input for schools in developing matters relating to teaching and
learning and improving the quality of educators and students, especially
in physics subjects.
4. For the Public
Researchers have the knowledge, understanding and implementation in
making multiple choice question assessment instruments as a means of
identifying students' misconceptions on Newton's law material about
motion.
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1.7. Operational Definition

Some definitions of the terms in this study include:

a. Instrument is a measuring tool used to measure in order to collect data
b. Instrument development is a main component in research conducted by
processing and shaping instruments through several stages by
considering the feasibility of the product to be produced.
c. The two-tier multiple choice test is a problem where the first level
contains questions with various choices of answers, the second part
contains choices of reasons that refer to the choice of answers in the
first stage (Tan, 2005). The reasons at the second level consist of the
choice of the correct reasons and some reasons that contain incomplete
understanding, which is obtained from the initial identification of
students.