THE INFLUENCE OF REALISTIC MATHEMATICS EDUCATION (RME) APPROACH TO MATHEMATICAL PROBLEM SOLVING ABILITY IN SMPN 17 MEDAN

The purpose of this research was to determine whether the RME approach can improve the mathematical problem solving abilities of students on the material Social Arithmetic and how the process of the students' answers in solving the problem. This research population was all students of class VII in SMP Negeri 17 Medan, while samples in this study were 33 students of class VII-4 are taught to RME approach. The method used is the t-test. Analysis t-test were*was used, with sig tcount 15.577. 0,000, so it was concluded that the use of RME approach can improve mathematical problem solving ability of students. From the process students' answers, be concluded that students have started to understand the problem and solve the problem is well* problem solving well, but students are*were still have difficulties in determining the problem-solving strategies, beside of that the student didn't do the recheck for their working.