Siti Fatimah, Toto Nusantara, Cholis Sa’dijah, Subanji, Adi Atmoko, Ratna Ekawati
Psychometrically validated instruments that operationalize cultural artifacts within established critical thinking frameworks remain limited in elementary mathematics education. This study developed and validated a Malangan mask–based fraction assessment to profile Grade 5–6 students’ mathematical critical thinking using Facione’s (1990) six indicators: interpretation, analysis, evaluation, inference, explanation, and self-regulation. Seven fraction items were designed around mask sales, prices, and discounts, reflecting the proportional, visual, and economic features of Malangan mask art. Content validity was established through structured expert review using Lawshe’s method (mean CVI = 0.95), and inter-rater reliability was examined using intraclass correlation on a 20% scoring subset (ICC = 0.87). The assessment was administered to 200 students from four public elementary schools in Malang, East Java (city = 100; regency = 100). It was implemented as a standalone diagnostic instrument, independent of any specific instructional intervention, to capture students’ existing critical thinking profiles within a culturally familiar task context. Data were analyzed using Welch-corrected t-tests and ANOVA. City students outperformed regency peers across all indicators (Cohen’s d = 0.88–1.34, p <.001), with regional grouping explaining 16–31% of variance. Interpretation and explanation were the strongest indicators in both regions, whereas evaluation, inference, and self-regulation were weakest, particularly in regency schools where 75–78% of students required support. The study contributes a validated ethnomathematics-based assessment tool for differentiating students’ critical thinking profiles and highlights the need for explicit instructional scaffolding and equity-sensitive implementation in culturally grounded mathematics assessment. © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2026.
Doctoral Program of Elementary Education, Universitas Negeri Malang, East Java, 64145, Indonesia; Department Mathematics, Universitas Negeri Malang, East Java, 64145, Indonesia
