Do Elementary School Students Like Mathematics?

This study is aimed at describing the attitude of elementary school students toward mathematics. The research method used was survey. Respondents were 135 elementary school students consisting of fourth, fifth, and sixth-grade students. All respondents had recieved permission from their parents to participate in the study. Data were collected by using questionnaire. The results show that elementary school students assume that mathematics is a difficult subject. Respondents who gave spontaneous expression to mathematics with the word “difficult” amount to 38 students (27.74% of all respondents). They reason that mathematics has many formulas that must be memorized. In addition, the most difficult topic is volume because many formulas must be used to solve the problems related to volume. Interestingly, there are some students (13.14%) who consider learning mathematics fun because the material is easy to understand and the teacher is interesting. From the aspect of mathematics’ benefits, most respondents answer that learning mathematics is meaningful and useful in daily life, for example; to count money, buy and sell, count discounts, calculate area/land, measure weight, calculate volume, calculate distances, calculate farm yield, measure time, and train thinking and patience. Keywords— mathematics, elementary school students.