E.B. Rahaju
Characteristic of someone understand the concepts is the ability to give the examples and non-examples and the reasons. The thinking process in determining the example and non-examples of a concept will be different because of its cognitive style. This is an explorative study which qualitatively analyze the thinking processes of field independent (FI) and field dependent (FD) students in providing non examples of quadrilateral concepts. The results of the study indicate that: 1) The essential characteristics of each shape in the quadrilateral as the basis for the FI participant to determine the non-examples, so that the shape which does not meet those characteristics are selected as non-examples. The selected first non-example tends to be similar with the grouped shapes. 2) The essential characteristics of each shape in the quadrilateral as the basis for the FD participant to determine the non-examples, so the shapes have striking differences are chosen as non-examples to make her be easier to give the reasons. The determination of the essential characteristics of a quadrilateral is important in determining non-example of quadrilateral. Based on the selection of examples and non-examples of quadrilateral will facilitate to determine the relationship of many concepts in the quadrilateral. © Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd.
Mathematics Departement, Universitas Negeri Surabaya, Indonesia
