Improve the ability of understanding mathematics and confidence of elementary school students with a contextual approach using VBA learning media for Microsoft Excel

The main problem of this research is the lack of students understanding the ability and mathematical self-confidence for mathematics learning in elementary school students in Indonesia. Lack of students understanding of mathematics is caused by the learning process in school. Teachers still use conventional learning in the learning process. Also, the basic skills aspects of students also affect the ability of math skills. Furthermore, the learning process with a contextual approach assisted by VBA Learning Media (Visual Basic Application for Excel) gives positive influence on students both regarding mathematical understanding and self-confidence. The data processed in this study is from the post-test score. This score arises from both the experimental class group and the control class group. Then, the data processed using SPSS 22 and Microsoft excel. Data were analyzed using the t-test statistic. The final result of this study concludes achievement and improvement of mathematical understanding ability and Self Confidence students learning with contextual approach supported by VBA (learning media Visual Basic Application for Excel) are better than students who get conventional learning.


Introduction
Mathematics is a subject that is often encountered at every level from elementary school to the level of college, because of the importance of the role of mathematics in everyday life in all fields. Mathematics in general everyone says the relationship with numbers and ways of calculation, but the development of mathematics is still very limited because it is not able to provide an overview of the usefulness of mathematics. Therefore the teacher is one of the keys to conveying to students about the benefits of mathematics itself [1]. Difficulty factors students are not able to master mathematics, students are not able to solve problems in understanding indicators as much as 84.62% [2] and there are some important notes that need to be known to students having difficulty understanding text or story problems, wrong guessing from story problems, guessing answers because students are unable to understand, and unable to understand and interpret mathematical symbols. therefore, the ability to understand mathematics must be introduced since elementary school which can be applied to real life situations [3].
To overcome the difficulties of the ability of elementary school students, one of the strategies to convey more effectively is to use ICT-based mathematics learning media that makes it easier for teachers to make it more practical by utilizing basic algorithms [4], economically, and creating more conducive classes [5]. To make mathematics learning media, software is needed enough that can link image forms that work interactively so that students in addition to understanding the mathematical material, as well as the existence of confidence to solve problems. By using VBA for Microsoft Excel, there are many advantages for a teacher to create a media that can be applied in the classroom by utilizing mathematical functions associated with images, such as learning about opportunities in high school using VBA for Microsoft Excel [6], Microsoft Excel can help in a variety of fields and math games [7]. By utilizing VBA for Microsoft Excel, can be developed into teaching aids for elementary school students to improve the ability to understand the fraction material that is linked in the form of images and the approach used is contextual, namely 1. Constructivism 2. Asking questions (asking) 3. Investigations (finding) 4. Learning communities (learning communities) 5. Modeling 6. Reflection 7. Authentic Assessment. [8] With a contextual approach students can more easily understand the material taught because it uses examples in daily life.
In addition to the contextual approach, learning media are also needed that can facilitate students in understanding the material being taught and increase students' confidence. One of them is by using the VBA programming language (Visual Basic application for Excel).
Based on previous research conducted by [6] It was concluded that mathematics learning with a VBA-assisted contextual approach could improve the mathematical reasoning abilities and dispositions of high school students. Where student activity, achievement and students reasoning abilities and dispositions are better than those, who received conventional learning. With VBA assistance, students are more directly involved in the learning process and make learning mathematics more interactive and fun for students.
Therefore we try to apply mathematics learning with a VBA-assisted contextual approach to improve the ability of elementary school students to understand mathematics and self-confidence.

Method
The research design used a quasi-experimental method for two classes, namely the experimental class and the control class. Where the control class uses learning in the usual way while the experimental class is the class that learns using the VBA for Microsoft Excel contextual approach, with the following design [9]: How to collect instruments, first, the question is adjusted to the indicators of understanding ability and made five questions based on different levels of difficulty that have been tested for validity, reliability, differentiation and difficulty indexes that have been tested. Second, the questions were given to students during the pre-test along the post-test and were given a questionnaire instrument to know student confidence. Then the comprehension ability instrument is processed using normality, homogeneous and T-Test to see the difference in average and the increase in average, as well as the questionnaire of confidence.

Results and discussion
From the results of the study, before conducting experiments on the two classes, an initial test was conducted to see the ability of students' understanding of fractional material and obtained the average of both classes, namely 2.85 for the control class and 2.80 for the experimental class with a maximum value of 20, from the data illustrating that the average ability of students in low fraction material, this is in line with Tian  To deal with this, the researcher provides steps to improve students 'understanding ability because of the importance of fractions and decimals in basic knowledge to deal with the further mathematical material; it is necessary to pay attention to students' difficulties when working on fractions. In figure 1 (a) students only understand integers which state that there is a large number which means that it is larger than a small number but cannot interpret the meaning of fractions. Figure 1 (b) students have not been able to construct fractional shapes into drawing shapes, and students have not been able to explain the reason why the shape of the picture is an illustration of a fraction. Figure 1 (c) students try to portray the fractional form of the distribution of sponge cake distributed, but students have the opinion that 3/6 parts are more than 2/4 parts which should be the same answer. Comparing between fractions 20 80% 4 How to process in counting 24 96% Table 1 shows the factors of student difficulties that cause students to be weak in their understanding of fractions, the data numbered 25 elementary school students. From the findings, it becomes a reference for how to overcome students' difficulties in learning fractions, namely using mathematics learning media using Visual Basic Application for Microsoft Excel, which aims to make students learn about fractions [6,11].    Figure 3 shows the mathematics learning media using VBA for Microsoft Excel to create activeness for teachers and students to discuss and each group has ventured to present the results in front of the class. In addition to enhancing students' understanding ability, students also feel confident about solving fractions.With the contextual approach assisted by Visual Basic Application for Microsoft Excel, the atmosphere of learning mathematics in fraction subject is more fun and more interactive, this helps the learning and teaching process in the classroom more effectively. Visual Basic Application for Microsoft Excel brings concrete images into several examples so students can conclude about the concept of fractions which is one indicator of reasoning ability. Table 2 explained the stages of a contextual approach that is assisted by VBA for Microsoft Excel to improve the understanding level of the student.       Table 3. Findings of students' difficulties fraction material at postest.

NO Difficulties
The number of students Percentage 1 Give a reason for the answer 5 20% 2 Link fractions with images 3 12% 3 Comparing between fractions 2 8 % 4 How to process in counting 3 12% Table 3 shows that the ability of students 'understanding of comparing fractions has been better than before, students' difficulties have decreased and mastery of fraction material above 79% of students, that means there is an increase in the ability to understand fractional material after using mathematics learning media using VBA for Microsoft Excel with the aim of measuring the ability of elementary school students to understand the concept of fractions [12]. From the results obtained, after conducting research for the control class and experimental class, there was an increase in the class average of 10.70 for the control class and 16.25 for the experimental class. And the average experimental class is better than the control class, seen from the significant value of the t test 0.000 <0.05 after the value data is processed by the test number 0.133 for the experimental class and 0.200 for the control class, both are 0.05 and then homogeneous test with a significant value of 0.936 > 0.05 second homogeneous data. And the results of the students' self-confidence questionnaire from all 15 questions for each of the highest score questions are 4, and the lowest value is 0, from all the questionnaires that have a very high positive response can be seen in table 4.  Table 4 shows that students have mastered the ability to understand fractions, students try to find answers and are able to cooperate well, a sense of responsibility in students, students are able to express opinions from the results of the answers.

Conclusion
Based on the results of the discussion it can be concluded that a contextual approach using Application of Excel VBA Learning Media can Improve Mathematical understanding ability and self-confidence student in elementary school. This makes students more active, confidence and fun in learning math.