Critical Thinking Skills of Fifth Grade Elementary School Students in Bandung City on the Topic of Water Cycle in Natural Science Subjects

Abstract

Critical thinking skills are skills that a person needs to have. Therefore developing students' critical thinking skills is one of the main goals in 21st century education. The purpose of this study is to describe the critical thinking skills of fifth grade elementary school students on natural science subjects on water cycle topics. The research method used in this research is a quantitative descriptive method. The participants of this study were 25 elementary school students in Bandung city. The data is collecting by tests, interviews and documentation. After the data is obtained, the test is processed and analyzed using quantitative methods. The results of interviews and documentation studies were analyzed using descriptive methods. The research results showed that the critical thinking skills of fifth grade students in the elementary school of Bandung city were in the very poor category. The average score of students' critical thinking skills is 48.3 (very low). The interview results show that students' critical thinking skills are low because students do not like the type of description questions and because they did not willing to write. Students, who are in the low and medium category, are having another reason, which is they do not like to learn science.