The Effect of Fable on Increasing Students’ Understanding of Plane Figure Concept

Fables are stories that tell the lives of animals behaving like humans and having moral message. Fable is a media in learning mathematics about plane figure. The purpose of the study was to improve students’ concept understanding and learning motivation in plane figure topic. The types of the research are mixed method. The quantitative research to measure understanding concepts by using test. Qualitative research to measure learning motivation by using questionnaires and to describe learning plane figure using fable. The data were statistically analyzed with SPSS 19, that is, independent sample ttest and Mann Whitney. The subject of this study were 52 fourth graders of elementary school which comprises two classes, participated in this study. Data collection techniques used tests and questionnaires. The study results are as follows: First, students’ improved concept understanding indicated from the fact that the experimental class is higher than the control one, and second, students’ learning motivation is moderate, which is indicated from a gain score of 0.55. It also discusses the characteristic of plane figure using fable. As the implication, the fables could be used to measure students’ interest and reading ability in thematic learning for fourth graders. Keywords—joyful learning; thematic; fable