The Implementation of Problem-Based Learning Model with the Context of Traditional Saro Food to Support Students' Numeracy Ability on Ratio Topic

Abstract

Numeracy skills in ratio are an important basic competency for junior high school students, as the concepts of comparison and ratio are often encountered in everyday life. However, the results of national and international assessments such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2022 and the 2023 Minimum Competency Assessment (AKM) show that most Indonesian students have not yet reached the minimum competency threshold for numeracy (OECD, 2023; Kemendikbud, 2023). This condition shows a gap between the curriculum requirements that emphasize critical thinking skills and the application of mathematics in real contexts with the low learning outcomes. Therefore, contextual learning innovations that are close to the students' culture are needed. One relevant approach is Problem-Based Learning (PBL), which emphasizes the active involvement of students in solving real problems. The novelty of this study lies in the application of PBL combined with the context of traditional Saro food from Ternate City as a learning medium to represent the concept of ratio in a concrete way. This study aims to determine whether the application of the PBL model using the traditional food context of Saro can significantly improve students’ numeracy skills in ratio material. The study was conducted at a junior high school in Ternate City, involving 23 seventh-grade students who were randomly selected using random sampling techniques. The research approach used was Quasi Experimental Design with a One Group Pretest-Posttest Design, and data analysis was performed using a Paired Sample T-test. The results showed a significant increase in numeracy skills after the implementation of the Saro context-based PBL model with a significance value of 0.000 < 0.05. These findings confirm that the integration of problem-based learning with local wisdom is effective in improving mathematics learning outcomes and the relevance of learning to students' real lives (Rahman et al., 2024; Purnadewi & Widana, 2023).