THE EFFECT OF CHARACTER EDUCATION IMPLEMENTATION IN STUDENTS RESPONSIBILITY AND PROBLEM SOLVING COMPETENY OF LIGHT USING PROBLEM SOLVING STRATEGY AT JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL

The objectives of this research were: (1) knowing the effect of character education implementation in improving students responsibility using problem solving strategy, (2) knowing the effect of character education implementation in improving student’s problem solving competency, and (3) knowing the interaction between students responsibility and problem solving competency. The research method was quasi experimental. The population were two hundred and fifty (250) students grade VIII semester II SMP Swasta Muhammadiyah 1 Medan and 68 students became sample of this research. The sample divided into two classes, experimental and control class. Sample divided into two classes, experimental and control classes. The treatment given was the implementation of character education in class VIII-Unggul use problem solving strategies, and without the implementation of character education in classes VIII-A. Data obtained by direct observation for the students responsibility and test of problem-solving competency to the students after learning that the treatment given. Data analysis technique used is the chi-square. These results indicate that: (1) implementation of character education give effect to improve the students responsibility, obtained X2count = 12.43 > X2table (α = 0.01) = 9.21. It can also be seen from the improvement students responsibility from the average normalized gain obtained <g> experimental class at 0.33 with medium category while the control class -1.55 obtained a low category. (2) students are given the implementation of character education scored better problem-solving competency than students who do not implement character education, obtained X2count = 24.67 > X2table (α = 0.01) = 9.21. It can be also seen an improvement problem-solving competency of the average normalized gain of <g> experimental class is 0.50 that includes the medium category while the control class is 0.25 that including the low category. (3) There is no interaction between the students responsibility with problem-solving competency, obtained X2count = 0 < X2table (α = 0.01) = 13.3.