A review of mathematical modelling in educational research in Indonesia

Mathematical models are mathematical representations of real-life problems which are used to simplify the problems and also for future prediction. Mathematical modelling has been used in educational research around the world mainly to predict students' academic performance and to identify essential factors that affect students' learning. However, in Indonesia there are very few published researches that employ mathematical modelling for educational studies. The present study is an integrative review conducted to document these studies. The objective is to provide an overview of the usage of mathematical modelling in educational research in Indonesia. The method of the review follows Torraco's guidelines of integrative review which consist of critical analysis and synthesis. Five open-access published articles were discovered. These articles were written either in English or in Bahasa Indonesia. 3 out of 5 articles focused on explaining several predictor variables that influence student performance. The other 2 articles focused on comparing different methods of modelling to predict student performance. These findings show that mathematical modelling has not been extensively utilized in educational research in Indonesia.