Analysis of Students' Critical Thinking Skills at Junior High School in Science Learning

Abstract

Critical thinking skills is one of students' skills needed to face globalization in 21st century challenge. Critical thinking skills are active processes to thinking deeply due to topic or materials through meaningful way. The indicators of critical thinking skills are thinking about certain topic in depth, asking questions, and finding relevant information. This study aimed to analyze students' critical thinking skills at junior high school in science learning. Instruments used in this study were created according to Facione indicators of critical thinking skills namely to interpret, to analyze, to evaluate, to infer, to explain, and to do self-control. Subjects in this study were 256 students of seventh grade at junior high school in Karanganyar. Purposive sampling were used as sampling technique. Results showed that two indicators have gained good category namely to analyze that was 62% and to evaluate that was 70%; while four other indicators have gained sufficient category namely to interpret that was 35%, to infer that was 49%, to explain that was 40%, and to do self-control that was 46%. The conclusion of this study was there were two indicators of students' critical thinking skills gained good category and four indicators of students' critical thinking skills gained sufficient category. Thus proper follow-up of this study is needed to explore ways to improve the achievements of each indicators in students' critical thinking skills.