Effectiveness of Differentiated Learning in Improving Literacy and Numeracy of Primary School Students

Abstract

Literacy and numeracy are one of the critical thinking skills in solving daily life problems that must be possessed by every individual. Based on data obtained from PISA, the level of literacy and numeracy skills in Indonesia is still relatively low, which ranks 62nd out of 70 countries. Therefore, efforts are needed to improve literacy and numeracy skills, one of which is through Differentiated Learning Activities. This study aims to determine the effectiveness of differentiated learning implementation in improving students' literacy and numeracy skills. The subjects of this study were fifth grade students one of elementary school in Pasuruan with a total of 18 students. The instruments used in this study were pretest and post-test sheets, observation sheets, and documentation. The method used in this research is an experiment with a pre-experimental design (One Group Pretest-Posttest) using the t test. Data collection techniques are observation, tests (pretest and posttest), and documentation. This study found that the application of differentiated learning can improve the literacy and numeracy skills of elementary school students. This is obtained from the results of the t test which shows that literacy skills obtained a significance value = 0.04452 and numeracy skills obtained a significance value = 0.000938 with α = 0.05. Based on the test criteria that the significance value <0.05 means that differentiated learning can improve students' literacy and numeracy skills. In addition, the average score of the post-test results on literacy skills is 73.611. While the average score of the post-test results on numeracy skills is 70.277 so that the average result of normalized gain with a literacy ability value of 0.53 and a numeracy ability value of 0.58. The differentiated learning activities that have been carried out can improve students' literacy and numeracy skills.