An Analysis of Students' Difficulties in Solving PISA-like Mathematical Problems

PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) is one of international assessments of mathematics and science achievement that focuses on measuring knowledge and skill of 15-year-old students. It has acquired key knowledge and skills that are essential for full participation in modern societies. Indonesia has joined this program since 2000 but the result said the mathematical literacy of Indonesian students is lower than that of in other country. This study aims to explore students' difficulties in solving PISA-like mathematical problems, so the results of this study can be used as a consideration in the teaching and learning process. For this purpose, a test addressing PISA mathematics tasks were administered to 70 ninth graders from three junior high schools in the Province of Yogyakarta. Newman error analysis was performed to analyse students' incorrect responses in essay problems. The result of this study shows that students did not get significant difficulties on solving multiple choices problem, but there were difficulties in solving essays problems. The result of this study shows that students did error on reading, comprehension, transformation, process skill, and encoding.