Abstract:

People intuitively will answer mathematics can be used in counting money or measuring areas or measuring height of a building if they were asked how you used mathematics in your daily life. Mathematics were one of the subjects taught in schools and universities, most of the topics is about counting, with logic and statistics. This research was conducted in the mathematics education department, freshmen students taking the subject on Basic Mathematics participated in the study. At the beginning of the class, all students were asked "Can Mathematics be applied in your real life? If so, give a brief explanation". All students respond that mathematics can be applied in their real life and all the examples are about basic counting. Only 21% give more advanced examples such as estimation. The respondent also asked on their bad experience with their math teachers, all of them respond that they all have bad experience with their teachers, with various kinds of experience. Further study will be conducted at the end of the semester, to see if there is some changes in their perceptions on Mathematics and Mathematics teacher.

Keywords:

Mathematics, applications, teachers, perception.