The Types and Factors of Error of Elementary School Students in Solving Mathematical Word Problems: An Analysis Using the Fong’s Method

This research aims to identify types of error and factors that cause 6th-grade elementary school students in rural and urban areas to make errors in solving mathematical word problems based on Fong’s Schematic Model for Error Analysis. This research is a survey with a quantitative approach. The research population is all of the 6th-grade elementary school students in Kebumen, Jawa Tengah, Indonesia, totaling 1.928 students. The sample was 522 students consisting of 316 students from urban areas and 206 students from rural areas. The instrument of data collection is an essay test in mathematical word problems form. The instrument is declared valid by the content and construct validity. The instrument reliability coefficient is 0.83. The results of the study show that 6th-grade elementary school students in the urban area make errors incomplete schema with errors (E5) category while rural area students make errors in the category of irrelevant procedures (E2) and complete schemes with errors (E5). Furthermore, the cause of 6th-grade elementary school students in urban areas to make mistakes is a language factor, while in rural areas students make language and operational factors simultaneously.