Profile of 11th-grade students' critical thinking skills in the reaction rate topic and their relationship with learning outcomes

Abstract

This study aims to analyze the profile of students' critical thinking skills and their relationship with learning outcomes. The research design used was descriptive research with a pretest-posttest control group design. The participants of the study were 11th-grade students of a state high school in Malang, Indonesia, which consisted of two classes. One class was taught with a metacognitive learning strategy (MLS) and another class was taught with a conventional learning strategy (CLS). The instruments used were critical thinking test (r = 0.766) and learning outcomes test (r = 0.788). Data about critical thinking skills and learning outcomes were analyzed descriptively. There are 8 critical thinking indicators reviewed in this study, namely (1) defining terms and considering definitions; (2) shows or makes assumptions; (3) asking and answering questions that require explanation; (4) focusing questions; (5) interact with other people; (6) make induction; (7) observing and considering the results of observations; and (8) deduction and assess the results. The results showed that (1) The highest and lowest critical thinking score of indicators in the MLS class were the ability to do induction and the ability to interact with others with a mean and N-gain successively are X¯ = 87.50; N-gain = 0.81 and X¯ = 62.50; N-gain = 0.45. (2) The highest and lowest critical thinking score of indicators in CLS class were the ability to observe & consider the results of observations and the ability to show or make assumptions with the mean and N-gain successively are X¯ = 76.47; N-gain = 0.56, and X¯ = 58.82; N-gain = 0.30; (2) in general the critical think skills and student learning outcomes of MLS classes were higher (X¯ = 77,19 and 76.91) than CLS classes (X¯ = 66,47 and 67,29); (3) There was a relationship between critical thinking skills and student learning outcomes with a correlation coefficient of 0.370. The implication of this research is to improve students' critical thinking skills and learning outcomes need to include learning strategies that are appropriate to the characteristics of the topics being studied.