Enhancing junior high school students’ numeracy through differentiated contextual worksheets

Improving students’ numeracy requires learning that is meaningful and closely connected to real-life contexts. Currently, most materials lack a differentiated numeracy approach, limiting their ability to support diverse student needs effectively. This study aims to develop contextual worksheets embedded with numeracy through a differentiated approach for junior high school students. The research employed a Research and Development (R&D) approach, adopting the ADDIE model, which comprises five stages: Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation. The study involved 39 eighth-grade students from a public junior high school in Cirebon. The developed product comprises three differentiated worksheet versions tailored to students’ learning styles, visual, auditory, and kinesthetic, with numeracy activities linked to real-life contexts. Validation results from five expert validators indicated that the developed contextual worksheets achieved a very high level of validity, with an average score of 97.3% (categorized as very valid) across the content, presentation, and appearance aspects. The test instrument used to measure numeracy improvement also demonstrated high validity, scoring 96.4% (very valid). The trial results showed an average N-Gain of 0.51 (moderate), indicating an improvement in students’ numeracy skills after using the differentiated contextual worksheets. Therefore, the developed contextual worksheets are considered valid, practical, and feasible for use in mathematics learning within the framework of the Merdeka Curriculum.