Analysis of Students' Mathematical Computational Thinking Ability in Linear Programming Material

This study aims to describe and analyze students' mathematical computational thinking ability in linear programming material. The type of research used is descriptive qualitative research. The population of this study was all tenth-grade students of SMA Negeri 2 Padangsidimpuan, North Sumatra, Indonesia, enrolled in the odd semester of the 2025/2026 academic year. Research subjects were selected using a Quota Sampling technique, with a desired quota of 35 students from the tenth grade. Data was collected using a test in the form of one essay question that comprehensively covered indicators of mathematical computational thinking ability: decomposition, pattern recognition, abstraction, and algorithmic thinking. From the analysis results, the average score of the 35 students was 67.39, with a minimum score of 37.50 and a maximum score of 100. Students' computational thinking ability was categorized into five levels: the 'very good' category comprised 3 students (8%), 'good' had 6 students (17%), 'fair' had 15 students (43%), 'low' had 9 students (26%), and 'very low' had 2 students (6%). Overall, these results indicate that the majority of students are at a proficiency level that still needs improvement. The aspect of abstraction, which involves the ability to identify general principles and filter essential information, poses a particular challenge for the learners. This finding implies the importance of a more explicit learning approach in training the processes of generalization and mathematical modeling. Therefore, innovative teaching strategies are needed to further develop the abstraction thinking component within the context of solving linear programming problems. Further research is also recommended to test the effectiveness of specific methods in addressing the specific weaknesses in this indicator. It can be concluded that students in the good category were able to meet all indicators but were less proficient in the abstraction thinking indicator.