<span>This was quantitative correlational research, which investigated the correlation between metacognitive skills and scientific attitudes towards the retention of male and female students in South Sulawesi, Indonesia. The research sample was biology education students in the second semester, with 104 students consisting of 47 males and 57 females. The instruments employed in this study were those for assessing metacognitive skills, scientific attitudes, and retention. Metacognitive skills and retention were measured using essay tests, while scientific attitudes were measured using observation sheets. The results indicated that the value of the simultaneous contribution of metacognitive skills and scientific attitudes towards to the retention of female students was higher than that of male students. The effective contributions of metacognitive skills and scientific attitude towards male students' retention were 3.33% and 24.67%. Metacognitive skills and scientific attitudes both contribute 14.5% and 17.2%, respectively, to female students’ retention.</span>

Critical thinking emerges when learners attempt to use their background knowledge to construct meaning through interpreting, analyzing, and manipulating information in responding to a problem or a question that requires more than a single correct answer. Two factors that affect the improvement of the students’ critical thinking skills are lecturers’ activities and students’ activities. This study was a descriptive quantitative study which aimed to investigate (1) how lecturers perceive the development of students’ critical thinking skills and (2) drawbacks or obstacles that hinder the development of students’ critical thinking skills. The type of this research is a survey research with the descriptive quantitative approach. The research samples were taken from the population by using purposive sampling technique. Data was collected using a questionnaire, an observation sheet, and interviews. The research findings are 32.05% of the lecturers evaluated their students' critical thinking skills; therefore, promoting lecturers' awareness of developing students' critical thinking skills is necessary. In addition, the results of the present study also indicated that the development of students' critical thinking skills could interfere with many aspects including lecturers, students, frequencies of scientific meetings, and facilities.

Metacognition can make a significant contribution to learning, especially that related to intellectual ability. Students’ metacognitive awareness and skills can be developed through consistent implementation of appropriate learning designs and students’ progress monitoring. The current research attempted to identify students’ metacognitive awareness and metacognitive skills in a biology education context. This research involved 142 preservice biology teachers from STKIP Pembangunan Indonesia Makassar, UIN Alauddin Makassar, Universitas Pejuang Republik Indonesia (UPRI) Makassar, and STKIP Yapim Maros. This study employed a descriptive quantitative method where metacognitive awareness inventory (MAI) was distributed to gather data on the participants’ metacognitive awareness and an essay test was conducted to examine the students’ metacognitive skills. The results show that the students’ metacognitive awareness falls into very low category with the average score of 37,55 for planning, 37,97 for monitoring, 38,39 for evaluating, and 35,73 for revising. Based on the test results, almost half of the students (44,90%) are categorized can not really; none of them (0%) were super or ok; 13,63% of the students fall into development category; 39,49% into risk category; and 1,97% into not yet category.

The ability to give arguments is very essential for students in order that they can take more roles in various aspects of life. The quality of students' arguments can be reflected in their ability to accommodate higher-order thinking skills to generate an argument. This study aims at analyzing students' ability to make arguments and the quality of their arguments after the implementation of Reading, Questioning and Answering (RQA), ADI (Argument-Driven Inquiry), RQA integrated with ADI, and conventional learning strategies. This research is survey research using a descriptive quantitative approach. The subjects of this research were the Biology Education students of UIN Alauddin Makassar and Universitas Muslim Maros, South Sulawesi, consisting of 92 students. The collected data were in the form of students' argumentation skill data obtained from the observation sheets in each class through the implementation of RQA strategy, ADI strategy, RQA integrated with ADI strategy, and conventional learning strategy on animals Physiology learning. The results of this research showed that the quality of students' arguments at the implementation of RQA, ADI, RQA integrated with ADI learning strategies was at the level of application, analysis, evaluation, and creation, while at the implementation of conventional learning their argumentation quality was at the level of memorizing and understanding.This is an open access article under the CC-BY-SA license.

A preliminary study showed that Biology learning in the classroom could not encourage the integration of science concepts and Islamic values. The aims of this study are to (1) develop a new learning model that integrates scientific principles and Islamic values, and (2) characterize the RQANI model's validity, practicability, and effectiveness. This study belonged to the research and development study. The learning model was developed in four stages, including (1) preliminary investigation, (2) design, (3) realization/implementation, and (4) test, evaluation, and revision. The study population included all biology education students at IAIN Ternate, STKIP KIE Raha Ternate, and UIN Alauddin Makassar in Indonesia. The study enrolled 120 fourth semester biology education students from IAIN Ternate, STKIP KIE Raha Ternate, and UIN Alauddin Makassar, Indonesia. The research instruments employed in this study are validation sheets for learning models, observation sheets for learning implementation, learning achievement tests, and response questionnaires for the learning model. The results of this study include: (1) a new learning model, namely RQANI, that consists of five learning stages (Reading, Questioning, Answering, Elaboration, Integration);(2) The validity of the RQANI prototype was very high with an average value of 3.74. The RQANI learning model was considered fairly practical and effective in improving student learning outcomes and positive responses. Therefore, it can be concluded that RQANI has met the requirements for a valid, practical and effective learning model.