Analysis of Students’ Difficulties in Solving Trigonometry Problems

This study aimed to describe the difficulties of students in solving math problems, especially in solving trigonometry questions.. The subjects of this study were freshmen majoring math program who had already taken trigonometry courses. The research type was qualitative descriptive research. Data collection tools were essay trigonometry tests, deep interviews and documentation. Data analysis techniques were carried out using document analysis techniques. The results show that the students have difficulty in understanding the information given to solve the problems. They do many errors in applying trigonometric concepts to answer the questions, because they do not calculate correctly the results of angle comparison. Besides, they incorrectly determine the angle of comparison between the angles obtained. Furthermore, the students were not familiar with the trigonometrysquestions because they were confused.This problem has hindered them from accomplishing the task in a given time.