Enhancement of Mathematical Communication Competency Upon Students of Junior High School Through Contextual Learning Based on Coastal Culture

Various studies have pointed out that communication in mathematics is one of the necessary competencies in learning mathematics. Students are expected to possess such competency in order to communicate learning materials in an efficient and effective manner which is supposed to create easiness for students to learn. A particular learning approach which is allegedly to enhance mathematical communication competency is the contextual learning based on coastal culture. This research was conducted by undertaking mixed method with sequential explanatory strategy. Design of study is pretest-posttest control group design. The population is students of Junior High School in East Flores District, Province of East Nusa Tenggara with 119 students as sample. The sampling technique is purposive sampling. Four separate classes of class 8 of Junior High School in Larantuka were randomly selected to be distinguished as an experimental class and a control class. The instrument of this study is a test of mathematical communication competence. Results show that there is an enhancement in mathematical communication competency upon students of the group which were learning through contextual learning based on coastal culture (CLBCC) and conventional learning approach (CLA). Learning outcomes and enhancement in mathematical communication competency of the CLBCC group were found to be higher than those of the CLA group. For both groups, the lowest average enhancement was upon the indicator of expressing a certain situation or mathematical relationship into mathematical models (graph, figures, and mathematical expressions). The highest average enhancement was found upon the indicator of outlining significance upon given situation or problem, which occurred within both groups.