The Analysis of Junior High School Students' Mathematical Connection on The Ratio and Proportion Concepts

. The purpose of this study was to obtain an overview of the mathematical connections of junior high school students on the concepts of ratio and proportion. This research uses a descriptive qualitative method with data triangulation. The research participants were four junior high school students in Sukabumi. The instrument used in this study consisted of a description test of three questions that had been consulted with experts and based on considerations regarding indicators of mathematical connection ability. Based on the results of the study, it is known that the ability of students to recognize and use connections between mathematical ideas is 50%, the ability of students to connect and apply mathematical concepts with other disciplines is 50%, and the ability of students to connect and apply mathematical concepts to problems in everyday life with a percentage of 50%. The results showed that the mathematical connection ability of some junior high school students in Sukabumi on the concept of comparison was included in the poor category.


INTRODUCTION
The mathematical connection is an essential ability because with this ability students can connect various mathematical concepts to solve mathematical problems encountered. Students could also understand the usefulness and apply the relevance of mathematics to other disciplines as well as in everyday life. Without connections, students must learn and remember many separate concepts and skills (NCTM, 2000). Through mathematical connections, students can master the competence to explain the relationship between concepts and use concepts and algorithms, flexibly, accurately, efficiently, and precisely in solving problems. The ability to connect between mathematical concepts is called mathematical connection (Peraturan Menteri Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan Nomor 58 Tahun 2014). Furthermore, in the regulation it is written, the characteristics of mathematics in the learning process are connectedness between one subject and other subjects and can be applied to other disciplines. This means that students must master the previously studied subject matter to study the next subject matter and apply it to other disciplines.
The mathematical connection is the ability to connect conceptual and procedural knowledge, use mathematics on other topics, use mathematics in life activities, and use connections between topics in mathematics (Coxford in Siagian, 2016). Connecting various information obtained will help students understand the concept (Mulyani, 2018). With mathematical connections, students could build new understandings based on prior knowledge (Karim, 2014). Mathematical connections can remove barriers that separate mathematics learned in school from mathematics learned elsewhere. Thus the mathematical connection helps students see mathematics as a unit of knowledge, not as a complex and separate thing between concepts, procedures, and processes (NCTM, 2000). With this knowledge, students could understand mathematics more thoroughly and more deeply (Warih et al., 2016).
In fact that the mathematical connection of some students is relatively low. As a research report on 9 th -grade of 22 Muhammadiyah Kisaran Junior High School, the percentage of the first indicator that is the relationship between mathematics and daily life is 51.11% so it belongs to the category of "not enough", and the percentage of the second indicator is the relationship between objects and concepts mathematics is 17.78% so it belongs to the category of "very less" (Siregar & Surya, 2017). Besides, research reports conducted on 8 th -grade of 7 Cimahi Public Middle School also known that the percentage of the first indicator that is the ability of students to recognize the relationship of different subjects in mathematics is 68.27%, the percentage of the second indicator that uses mathematics in other discipline is 30.13%, and the percentage of the third indicator that is using mathematics in daily life is 66.11% (Nurainah et al., 2018). According to other research reports conducted on 8 th -grade of Darul Falah Bendiljati Madrasah Tsanawiyah, the average score on the first indicator that is the connection between topics in mathematics that links between the subject in a particular topic with the subject in other topics is 51.8 so that it belongs to the category of "less", the average score on the second indicator that is the connection between mathematics subject with other fields of science other than mathematics is 40.83 so that it belongs to the category of "very less", as well as the average score on the third indicator that is the connection between mathematics with daily life is 66.3 so it belongs to the "enough" category (Laili & Puspasari, 2018). Other research reports in 8 th -grade of 2 Tiworo Selatan Public Middle School known the percentage of the first indicator that is connecting between objects and mathematics is 46%, the percentage of the second indicator that connects mathematics and daily life is 30%, and the percentage of the third indicator that connecting mathematics with other sciences is 32%. This shows that the students' mathematical connection is still low (Sudirman, 2017).
Some concepts that require the mathematical connection are the ratio and proportion because this concept is a substantial basic concept for understanding other mathematical concepts (Wahyuningrum et al., 2019). Also, the concept of the ratio and proportion often students meet in everyday life (Andini & Jupri, 2016). The concept is studied at the junior high school level. Based on this description, it is known the importance of mathematical connection skills in the concept of ratio and proportion but there is no research report yet. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to obtain an overview of the mathematical connections of junior high school students on the concepts of ratio and proportion.

METHOD
The design of this research was descriptive qualitative following Sudihartinih's research (Sudihartinih, 2018). The design of this study can describe the students' mathematical connections by using the triangulation of data sources (interviews, documentation, and theory). The participants of this research were four students in 8 th -grade at one of the junior high schools in Sukabumi, West Java.
This research instrument is the description test consisting of three questions that refer to mathematical connection indicators in NCTM (2000). The research instrument has been consulted with experts so the indicators used in this research are as follows: (1) Recognize and use connections between mathematical ideas. (2) Connect and apply mathematical concepts to other disciplines. (3) Connect and apply mathematical concepts with problems in everyday life.
These indicators can be measured and used sequentially in the following question of description test: 1. The ratio of the length and width of the rectangle is 7 : 4. The area of the rectangle is 252 cm 2 .
What is the circumference of the rectangle? minutes. The test is done individually and the test is given after students learn the concept of the ratio and proportion. Then the interview is conducted after the students answer the test given.
Interviews were changed to transcripts form for analysis. Furthermore, participants' answers could be measured using the assessment rubric as follows (Wardina & Sudihartinih, 2019): To calculate the percentage of total scores from each mathematical connection indicator (Pk), the following calculations can be used: The mathematical connection of students on each indicator can be classified as follows:

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Based on the research that has been carried out, here are the results.       In Figure 5, it can be seen that participant 1 answered question number 2 but the answer was still not quite right. Besides, participant 1 did not connect the concept of the temperature measurement with the concept of the ratio and proportion to get the temperature of a liquid if that measured using a Fahrenheit thermometer.  In Figure 6, it can be seen that participant 2 answers question number 2 but the answer is still not quite right. Also, participant 2 did not connect the concept of temperature measurement with the concept of the ratio and proportion to get the temperature of a liquid if that measured using a Fahrenheit thermometer. In Figure 7, it can be seen that participant 3 answers question number 2 but the answer is still not quite right. Besides, participant 2 did not connect the concept of the temperature measurement with the concept of the ratio and proportion to get the temperature of a liquid if that measured using a Fahrenheit thermometer.  In Figure 8, it can be seen that participant 4 answers question number 2 but the answer is still not quite right. Also, participant 4 did not connect the concept of the temperature measurement with the concept of the ratio and proportion to get the temperature of a liquid if that measured using a Fahrenheit thermometer. According to the results in Figure 9, participant 1 answered question number 3 but the answer was still not quite right. Besides, participant 1 did not connect the existing problems in daily life with the concept of the ratio and proportion to get the value in question.   According to the results in Figure 11, participant 2 answers question number 3 but the answer is still not quite right. Besides, participant 1 did not connect the existing problems in daily life with the concept of the ratio and proportion to get the value in question.   The results showed that the mathematical connections of some 8 th -grade students at one of the junior high schools in Sukabumi are in the "less" category. Students have not been able to recognize and use connections between mathematical ideas because in working on problems given students do not connect the concept of the plane with the concept of ratio and proportion to obtain answers. Students also have not been able to connect and apply mathematical concepts to other disciplines because in working on problems given students do not connect the concept of temperature measurement with the concept of the ratio and proportion to obtain answers. Besides, students have not been able to connect and apply mathematical concepts with problems in everyday life because in working on problems given students do not connect problems in everyday life with the concept of the ratio and proportion to obtain answers.
Based on the instruments that have been tested, each student's score is obtained on each indicator of mathematical connections following the number order of the description test. The scores and percentages obtained are as follows: From these data, the total score obtained from indicator 1 is 8 of the total maximum score of indicator 1 which is 16, the total score of indicator 2 is 8 of the total maximum score of indicator 2 which is 16, and the total score of indicator 3 is 8 of the total maximum score of indicator 3 which is 16.
The result from this research is also following previous research reports which show that students' mathematical connections are still lacking (Sugiman, 2008;Rawa et al., 2016;Nursaniah et al., 2018;Zuyyina et al., 2018;Jalaludin et al., 2018 (1) Teachers are encouraged to provide learning related to mathematical connections more depth and more varied in learning mathematics. Because with deeper and more varied learning, students are expected to be able to solve problems not only by memorizing formulas but by connecting their understandings.
(2) There must be further research on the causes of the lack of mathematical connections of students as well as on ways to improve students' mathematical connections (Siregar & Surya, 2017).

CONCLUSION
Based on the description and discussion from the results of research that has been done, it can be concluded that the percentage of mathematical connection of some students on the first indicator is 50%, the second indicator is 50%, and the third indicator is 50%. Thus the mathematical connection of some 8 th -grade students at one of the junior high schools in Sukabumi on the concept of the ratio and proportion is included in the "less" category.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Researchers would like to thank all the participants who have contributed to this research until it can be completed.