Five Priority Character Values: Content Analysis in The Independent Curriculum Mathematics Textbook in Indonesia

Abstract


Introduction when his actions include moral values and meaningful intentions
. Therefore, individual character involves the development of emotions, thoughts, and skills that are important for maintaining a positive atmosphere in life. It is closely related to positive behavior and long-term patterns that shape a person's personality. In education, character measures indicate specific aspects of personality relevant to academic achievement. Morality plays a significant role in determining the quality of character, as behavior reflects moral attributes. Success is often linked to actions driven by moral values and meaningful intentions. In essence, character values are essential for personal growth, positive relationships, and overall success.
Research on character values has been an interesting topic for many scholars and researchers worldwide. Various studies have been conducted to examine the essence of character values, their development, and their impact on various aspects of individuals' lives. Previous research has investigated how character values develop in individuals over time. Studies have examined the role of family, peers, schools, and communities in shaping character values during childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. This research aims to understand the factors that influence the acquisition, reinforcement, and internalization of character values (Khadijah et al., 2021;Permatasari & Zuchdi, 2015). Another research area focuses on character education and interventions designed to promote positive character values among students. Various programs and approaches have been studied to determine their effectiveness in fostering virtues, moral reasoning, empathy, and prosocial behaviors.
Researchers have assessed the impact of these interventions on academic performance, social interactions, and overall well-being (Lerner, 2017;Par, 2017). Comparative studies have explored the universality of character values across cultures and societies. Researchers have investigated cultural variations in the importance and manifestation of various virtues and moral principles, highlighting the need to consider cultural contexts when studying character values (Khoury, 2017). Researchers have explored the role of family, peers, schools, and communities in shaping character values. They have also studied programs and interventions in education to promote positive values and assess their effects on academic performance and well-being. Comparative studies have considered cultural contexts when exploring character values. Overall, this research helps us understand the importance of character values in our lives.
Character education establishes the values of virtue as the main goal of character education: politeness, filial piety, honesty, responsibility, respect, tolerance, communication, and cooperation (Par, 2017). Character education especially carried out at the school level has a very important role (Gable, R et al., 2013). Character education is also associated with higher levels of expression of integrity, compassion, and self-discipline (Jeynes, 2017). Apart from that, character education helps children develop skills and attitudes (Helterbran & Strahler, 2013;Ismail et al., 2021). Therefor, character education aims to instill values of virtue, such as politeness, filial piety, honesty, responsibility, respect, tolerance, communication, and cooperation. It plays a crucial role, particularly at the school level. Character education is associated with higher levels of integrity, compassion, and self-discipline. Additionally, it helps children develop important skills and positive attitudes.
The importance of character education values can be seen from the output or student learning outcomes, one of which is by looking at the effect on student achievement. Improving student achievement is the main goal and one indicator of the quality of learning (Gore et al., 2021). Culture and norms that are commonly attached to a school level can give students a strong character (Daniati et al., 2019). This evidence is supported by previous research which states that character education contributes to student success (Arthur, 2017). Character education can be conceptualized through key character traits such as wisdom, courage, integrity, modesty, filial virtue, and several other virtues that come from a moral and ethical background (Um et al., 2014). In conclusion, character education values play a significant role in student learning outcomes, including their achievement. Improving student achievement is a primary goal and indicator of learning quality. The school culture and norms can greatly influence the development of students' strong character. Previous research supports the evidence that character education contributes to student success. Key character traits, such as wisdom, courage, integrity, modesty, and filial virtue, derived from moral and ethical backgrounds, form the foundation of character education.
Teachers who always convey moral messages, both orally and in writing in textbooks, consciously or unconsciously by the teacher, will affect the moral development of students in depth (Nucci et al., 2014). The application of school habits has a significant effect on the development of student character (Saripudin & Komalasari, 2015). Principals, teachers, and staff are responsible for the success of character education. In addition, according to him, character education is effective if it is developed based on multiculturalism and local wisdom (Harun et al., 2020). The Indonesian government, through the presidential regulation of the Republic of Indonesia, mandates strengthening character education. This mandate is contained in the Presidential Regulation of the Republic of Indonesia, Number 87 of 2017 concerning Strengthening Character Education. This aims to strengthen character education with the aim of building and equipping students as the golden generation of Indonesia in 2045 with the spirit of Pancasila and good character education, developing Schools play a major role in educating, not only subject matter but also character. Schools can facilitate students to have good character education so that they can become Indonesia's golden generation in 2045. However, the term good character creates different interpretations and definitions in different value systems. Therefore, five main character values were released which must be prioritized in strengthening character education in schools. The public school system has become a vehicle for implementing social activities, and one of the main goals of education in schools is to help students become citizens of good character, able to participate and play appropriate social roles in everyday life. Values refer to fundamental principles and beliefs that act as general guides for behavior, standards by which certain actions are judged good or desirable. Therefore, five main character values were released which must be prioritized in strengthening character education in schools.
Character is a constellation of virtues possessed by a person. Character education can be interpreted as a deliberate effort to cultivate virtue. Character is a person's personality or character that is used as a basis for determining perspectives, thinking, behaving, and acting. Nucci & Narvaes. Nucci & Narvaes (Nucci et al., 2014) emphasizes that the character contained in a person can shape a person's morals. Good character will form good morals, and vice versa. Therefore, the development of character values needs serious attention by the teacher so that the character in students can develop properly. Character development in a person will differentiate a person from others. Bohlin (2005) reveals that character is a characteristic of someone who explains who we are, and distinguishes us from others.
School is a good place to strengthen character education. This means that education at the school level must be carried out properly. Strengthening character education related to character values applied in schools can be developed through various activities, including in learning activities and activities outside of learning (Nucci et al., 2014). One way to develop character values in the learning process is through integrating character values into learning activities (Parinusa et al., 2017). Character values that are integrated in each lesson are very important for the readiness of students in dealing with any problems in everyday life (Um et al., 2014). This opinion proves that in the learning process it is not only instilled cognitive values in students' personalities but also the development of students' character values.
The teacher constantly conveys moral messages, both orally and in writing in textbooks, consciously or unconsciously by the teacher, will affect the moral development of students in a profound way (Nucci et al., 2014). Therefore, teachers can help construct student character throughout the day at school during learning. The development of character values in students in learning can be done in various ways. One of them is through textbooks as a source of student learning. Textbooks can be used as a medium for developing character values in learning. Textbooks can be used as learning resources in the classroom, because textbooks can interact directly with students more often than with the class teacher (El-Saleh, 2016). Textbooks can also be a facility or means to achieve the expected goals.
Textbooks are given directly to students with the aim of students being able to find the knowledge themselves (Komalasari & Saripudin, 2018). The teacher in this case is only a learning facilitator.
The development of the times encourages the development of textbooks or student learning resources.
Currently, textbooks for junior high school students use the Merdeka Curriculum textbook and the 2013 Revised Curriculum textbook. Especially for the Merdeka Curriculum textbook, it must contain character values as an effort to strengthen character education in Indonesia. The Merdeka Curriculum text book consists of two kinds, namely the teacher's handbook and the student's handbook (Kemdikbudristek, 2021d(Kemdikbudristek, , 2021a. Books are made based on certain themes with different book sections. The content of character values in the Merdeka Curriculum textbook is designed based on the characteristics and character education strategies for each level. Parts of the teacher's manual include introductory words, prefaces, mathematics learning outcomes, instructions for using the book, table of contents, book contents, answer keys, index, and notes (Kemdikbudristek, 2021d(Kemdikbudristek, , 2021b(Kemdikbudristek, , 2021a(Kemdikbudristek, , 2021c. The learning page consists of indicators mapping sections, learning objectives, learning media/tools/resources, learning activities, enrichment and remedian, and assessment. Parts of the student's book include instructions for use, apperception, material and concepts, conclusions, summary questions, and deepening of the material (Kemdikbudristek, 2021d). Each section in the student book is expected to contain character values that are expected to be developed in students so that there are no discrepancies in the application of character values in textbooks (Mardikarini & Suwarjo, 2016). The use of textbooks based on life values education has a significant effect on the character development of students in junior high schools (Komalasari & Saripudin, 2018). Students who are always optimistic in the academic field affect their learning achievement (Ismail, 2021;Tucker-Drob et al., 2016). Character education and mathematics learning achievement and strengthen the theory about the factors that influence mathematics learning achievement (Khadijah et al., 2021). It is important for the student book to incorporate character values. Textbooks based on life values education have a significant impact on character development.
Optimism in academics affects learning achievement, and character education contributes to mathematics learning achievement.
Based on the explanation above, this study aims to determine the character values contained in the Teacher's Guide to the Independent Curriculum textbooks, the character values contained in the Independent Curriculum textbooks to the students' guide, and the suitability of character values in the teacher's guidebook and student's guidebook. Each of these learning objectives will explain the character values in each class.

Method
This research is content analysis research. Content analysis is a technique that is not contaminated by data collection procedures, because the data to be analyzed already exists (Zuchdi & Afifah, 2019).
Content analysis in general aims to describe complex and large amounts of data (Zuchdi & Afifah, 2019). To achieve the research objectives, content analysis is carried out to make inferences. To International Journal of Mathematics and Mathematics Education achieve this goal, content analysis was carried out in stages, namely by carrying out a meaning analysis of the junior high school Mathematics textbooks in the Independent Learning Curriculum to produce a finding about the values in strengthening character education that are owned from mathematics textbooks. The findings are then used to identify five key characters in character education reinforcement based on the data sources of this research, namely the junior high school mathematics textbooks in the Merdeka Belajar Curriculum.
Detailed content analysis consists of the following steps (Zuchdi & Afifah, 2019) Table 1. The Merdeka Curriculum textbook has been used in driving schools in Indonesia. The source of the data in this study were the Independent Curriculum textbooks, teacher guides and junior high school student guides published by the Ministry of Education and Culture. The unit of analysis in this study is the character values contained in all parts of the book. Data collection in this research was carried out by content analysis and careful recording of the Independent Curriculum lesson textbooks, teacher guides and junior high school student guides. The main instrument in this study is the human instrument, namely the researcher himself, by including it in the analysis rubric which is based on a theoretical basis related to character values.
Data validity is based on validity. The validity used in this research is semantic validity. Semantic validity is used to determine the suitability of the text category analysis with the selected context. The instrument reliability used in this study is stability reliability and replicability reliability. Stability reliability is carried out by repeated reading to gain understanding, while replicability reliability is carried out by means of discussion and confirmation with colleagues.
The content analysis procedure used consists of four steps, namely data acquisition, data reduction, inference, and data analysis (Zuchdi & Afifah, 2019). The data procurement stage consists of 3 parts, namely determining the unit of analysis, determining the sample, and recording or recording. Data reduction is done by eliminating things that are inconsistent with the character values being analyzed.
Inference is done by using the criteria for determining the value of the characters contained in the text. The data analysis stage is the stage of describing the analysis data obtained. Data analysis uses qualitative analysis techniques.
The data used in this study is Mathematics material in junior high schools in the Independent Learning Curriculum which consists of seventh and eighth grade textbooks. Presentation of data is done by describing the content of the main character values contained in the contents of the textbook.
Data reduction or reduction is carried out to obtain essential things according to the research objectives and eliminate irrelevant things. The process of reducing the data is carried out based on the considerations of experts from the results of the discussion. The next stage of analysis is inference.
The inference process is a major part of content analysis (Tandililing & Ismail, 2021). Success in making inferences is influenced by knowledge of the context of the data. In carrying out the inference process, researchers try not to reduce symbolic meaning, and use analytical constructs that describe the context of the data. This analytical construct is an operational description of the researcher's knowledge regarding the relationship between the data and the context being analyzed. The final stage is analysis. The analysis process is carried out by identifying and displaying important patterns that are statistically significant so that they can provide satisfactory information, so that a description of the results of the content analysis. The description regarding the five main priority character values contained in the character education strengthening policy to be analyzed is presented in Table 2.

Results
The results of the study were grouped into 3 parts, namely the character values in the teacher's manual, the character values in the student manual, and the suitability of the character values in the teacher's manual and the seventh and eighth grade student manuals. Each section analyzed has different results according to the focus on developing existing character values.

Results of Analysis of Priority Values in the Teacher's Handbook
The  Table 3. which only appeared 32 times. A clearer explanation can be seen in Figure 1.

Results of Analysis of Priority Values in the Student's Handbook
The  Based on the results of research on the two student guidebooks, it can be concluded that independent scores appear the most compared to other values. Clearer information can be seen in Table 4. The order of values based on the frequency of appearance is the value of independence, nationalism, cooperation, integrity, and religion. Based on class analysis, the most character values appeared in eighth grade, namely 36 times compared to seventh grade, which only appeared 33 times. A clearer explanation can be seen in Figure 3.

Conformity of Priority Character Values in the Independent Curriculum Mathematics Textbook
The  Indonesia must possess. This is because the Independent Curriculum teacher guidebook contains learning plans that will be carried out by teachers and students. The student handbook is a textbook that contains learning activities that support activities with the teacher in class. If the main character values are not often emphasized between the two textbooks, this means that there are character values that are not conveyed optimally to students.

Discussion
Strengthening character education is an educational policy whose main objectives are (1)   The process of developing learning can be done with a good learning strategy (Ismail, 2018). This is in line with Zuchdi's opinion (2015) Comprehensive methods that can be applied to character education are instilling values, setting an example, facilitating values, and developing life skills. Therefore, even though textbooks do not develop certain character values, teachers are expected to always develop character values that are expected to exist in students.
The results of the analysis also show that there are several character values that appear outside the seven-character values analyzed. These character values include cooperation, conscientiousness, meticulousness, curiosity, and hard work. Some of these character values also appear in the focus on developing character values and learning assessment.
Character education especially carried out at the school level has a very important role (Gable, R et al., 2013). Character education is also associated with higher levels of expression of integrity, compassion, and self-discipline (Jeynes, 2017) (Ismail & Imawan, 2014). Apart from that, character education helps children develop skills and attitudes (Helterbran & Strahler, 2013;Ismail, 2018). The importance of character education values can be seen from student learning outcomes, one of which is by looking at the effect on student achievement. Improving student achievement is the main goal and one indicator of the quality of learning (Gore et al., 2021;. Norms that are commonly attached to a school level can provide a strong character to students (Daniati et al., 2019). Therefore, the main character values that are often exemplified by students at school will become the culture and norms that are common to students.

Priority Character Values in the Student's Handbook
Based on the analysis conducted on the seventh and eighth grade student manuals, all character The character value of integrity is very important to instill in students. This is in line with Yaumi's opinion (2014) that integrity is not only spoken, nor used as a symbol or jargon, but must become an integral part of behavior. This opinion also applies to the character values of nationalism and cooperation. These character values are very important to instill in students so that students have religious character, nationalism, independence, cooperation, and integrity. This character is important to be instilled especially when students are already at the junior high school level, which is a downstream of the five main values of strengthening character education in junior high schools.
Each section in the student book is expected to contain character values that are expected to be developed in students so that there are no discrepancies in the application of character values in textbooks (Mardikarini & Suwarjo, 2016). The use of textbooks based on life values education has a significant effect on the character development of junior high school students (Komalasari & Saripudin, 2018). Students who are always optimistic in the academic field affect their learning achievement (Handoko et al., 2023;Tucker-Drob et al., 2016). Therefore, students who are always given examples of good character through the textbooks they read every day are expected to be able to influence the achievement of good character and have a positive effect on learning achievement.

Suitability of Priority Character Values in the Merdeka Curriculum Textbook
The Individual character involves the attainment of feelings, thoughts and skills. All of these are essential qualities that a person must have to maintain a positive atmosphere at every stage of life, as a whole, especially for himself and also for others (Lerner, 2017). The term character relates to positive behavior (Khoury, 2017). Character traits are long-term patterns of behavior that can be generalized into personality characteristics (Diggs & Akos, 2016). Therefore, it is necessary to always emphasize examples of good character to students continuously so that students always get examples of good character.

International Journal of Mathematics and Mathematics Education
Based on the results of the research and discussion above, the following conclusions can be drawn.
First, the Independent Curriculum textbook as a teacher guide as a whole contains seven character values in accordance with Presidential Regulation Number 87 Article 3 of 2017 concerning Strengthening Character Education which crystallizes into five priority character values. These character values are religiosity, nationalism, independence, mutual cooperation, and integrity. The frequency of occurrence of these character values depends on the focus of character development.
Second, the character values in the student manual as a whole contain character values in accordance with the Strengthening Character Education program, especially on the five priority characters. The value of religiosity is the value that appears the least in Middle School Mathematics textbooks in the Independent Curriculum, both in student and teacher manuals. Independent character values are the values that appear the most in both student and teacher manuals.