Umi Husnun Nihayah, Sri Rahayu
This study aims to evaluate high school students' critical thinking skills on the chemical aspects of Covid-19 issues. The research design is a survey and the data were analyzed using a qualitative descriptive method. The research subjects consisted of 41 twelfth-grade students who are majoring in Science (13 male and 28 female). They were chosen using a convenience sampling technique that originated from some regions in East Java province, namely Surabaya, Sidoarjo, Gresik, Mojokerto, and Banyuwangi. The instrument was a critical thinking skill test developed by the authors using the socio-scientific context of Covid-19. The test consisted of five multiple choices with written justification and seven essays based on Ennis indicators. The instrument has high internal consistency (Cronbach's Alpha=0.75). The research findings showed that most students mastered the critical thinking skill aspect of designing a logical strategy (69.92%), while the lowest aspect mastered by students was identifying assumptions (25.20%). The results also indicated that 14.63% (6) students score was good, 78.05% (32) students got an average score, whereas 7.32% (3) students got poor scores. These results show that most students are on the average performance category in critical thinking skills, and none of them achieved excellent critical thinking skills. This study implies that teachers need extra effort to improve students' critical thinking skills using relevant issues or context, such as socio-scientific issues. © 2021 Author(s).
Chemistry Department, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Science, State University of Malang, Malang, Indonesia
