Analysis of junior high school students' attempt to solve a linear inequality problem

Linear inequality is one of fundamental subjects within junior high school mathematics curricula. Several studies have been conducted to asses students' perform on linear inequality. However, it can hardly be found that linear inequality problems are in the form of "ax + b < dx + e" with "a, d ≠ 0", and "a ≠ d" as it can be seen on the textbook used by Indonesian students and several studies. This condition leads to the research questions concerning students' attempt on solving a simple linear inequality problem in this form. In order to do so, the written test was administered to 58 students from two schools in Bandung followed by interviews. The other sources of the data are from teachers' interview and mathematics books used by students. After that, the constant comparative method was used to analyse the data. The result shows that the majority approached the question by doing algebraic operations. Interestingly, most of them did it incorrectly. In contrast, algebraic operations were correctly used by some of them. Moreover, the others performed expected-numbers solution, rewriting the question, translating the inequality into words, and blank answer. Furthermore, we found that there is no one who was conscious of the existence of all-numbers solution. It was found that this condition is reasonably due to how little the learning components concern about why a procedure of solving a linear inequality works and possibilities of linear inequality solution.