Hayuni Retno Widarti, Nazriati, Isnaini Yunitasari
A thorough and comprehensive understanding of the acid-base concept depends on, among others, students' ability to connect between chemical representations when studying the concept. This research aimed to analyze the understanding of the acid-base concept of senior high school students in grades XI and XII using multiple representation-based questions. The research used a descriptive quantitative method. The research subjects were 126 people, consisting of 88 students of grade XI and 38 students of grade XII. The questions were comprised of 30 items of three-tier questions with the reliability of 0.753. The items of the instrument had the item validity in the range between 0.197-0.582. The instrument used in this study was an assessment for learning applied after learning. The research results showed that understanding of the acid-base concept was categorized as low. The average percentage of the understanding of the concept of acid and base of grade XI students was 24.09%, while the grade XII students reached only 6.49%. Lower understanding of the acid-base concept was apparent in questions involving sub-microscopic representations. The students understood the concept by memorizing, so if students learnt by multiple-representations, they would have a complete and true understanding. © 2020 Author(s).
Chemistry Department, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Universitas Negeri, Malang, Indonesia
