JPII 6 (1) (2017) 55-62 Jurnal Pendidikan IPA Indonesia http://journal.unnes.ac.id/index.php/jpii PROBLEM SOLVING APPROACH IN ELECTRICAL ENERGY AND POWER ON STUDENTS AS PHYSICS TEACHER CANDIDATES C. Riantoni 1 *, L. Yuliati 2 , N. Mufti 2 , Nehru 3 1 Postgraduate of Physics Education, Universitas Negeri Malang, Indonesia 2 Department of Physics, Universitas Negeri Malang, Indonesia 3 Physics Education, Universitas Jambi, Indonesia DOI: 10.15294/jpii.v6i1.8293 Accepted: December 23 th 2016. Approved: February 21 th 2017. Published: 30 th April 2017 ABSTRACT In agreement with students’ conceptual understanding, identifying of problem solving is an important part of physics. This article is to identify the approach used by students in solving a physics problem. The subject of the research were students of physics education year 2014 in Jambi University who had joined basic physics class. The instruments used in this research were DIRECT (determining and interpreting resistive electric circuit concept test) (Engelhardt & Beichner, 2004). Based on the result, 34,1% students still used the memory based ap- proach in problem solving, 52,3% of them used no clear approach, 4,5% used structured manner, 6,82% used un- structured manner and only 2,27% students used a scientific approach to solving the problem. The result showed that many students used no clear approach and memory based approach to solve the problem. It mean that they did not use physics concept in solving the problem and generally they only used the equation they memorized related to the problem they ever did before. © 2017 Science Education Study Program FMIPA UNNES Semarang Keywords: problem solving approach; power and electrical energy; DIRECT INTRODUCTION Students’ problem solving ability in physics has become the focus in some recent researches in the last decades. Although problem solving is one of the categories of thinking ability that used by teachers to teach their students to think (Ru- faida & Sujiono, 2013), the practice of problem solving is the main factor in science education and technology (Ceberio, et al., 2016; Ibrahim & Rebello, 2012), especially in physics educati- on (Adam & Wieman, 2005; Docktor & Mestre, 2014; Docktor et al., 2010). A good problem sol- ving framework was needed to buil physics kno- wledge or introduce science culture (Docktor et al., 2016). Students attitude towards learning and problem solving in science and their conception towards the purpose of learning science could give a significant effect on what they are learning (Mason & Singh, 2016). Problem solving is very important part In scientific reasoning because the skills in problem solving gives effect to change and improve emotional, cognitive and psycho- motor improvement (Alshamali & Daher, 2016). Modern cognitive science defines problem solving as a process to reach the goal when the way to it is unclear (Ryan et al., 2016; Docktor et al., 2016; Docktor & Heller, 2009). In physics education problem solving is usually used to un- derstand physics and exact strategy to prove stu- dents’ achievement (Docktor et al., 2016; Ceberio et al., 2016; Adams & Wieman, 2015; Ibrahim & Rebello, 2012). Besides, a good problem solving skills could help students transfer their knowled- ge and understand the pysical situation (Walsh et al., 2007) because one of physics purposes is to *Alamat korespondensi: E-mail: cicynriantoni12@gmail.com