One of the skills students must possess in the 21st-century biology learning is scientific argumentation skills. Scientific argumentation skills are associated with a strong understanding of concepts and improved critical thinking skills and scientific literacy. The purpose of this study was to investigate the scientific argumentation skills of high school students with different academic abilities. The current study was designed as a survey which involved tenth graders from two public senior schools, SMAN 3 Malang and SMAN 7 Malang. The first served as the representative of students with high academic ability and the latter was appointed to represent the low achievers. The data were analyzed using an independent-samples t-test. The results showed that there were significant differences between the high and ability students’ scientific argumentation skills with a p-value of 0.003. Around 10.34% of the high achievers could perform level 1 argumentation skills, 74.41% of them were able to achieve level 2, and 17.24% of the students reported level 3 responses. Among the students with low academic ability, 12% had reached level 1 argumentation skills and 88% of them were only able to achieve level 2, indicating that no one (0%) could answer the test with level 3 responses. This condition suggests that it is important to implement an innovative learning.
Scientific literacy skills are one of the skills required by the students nowadays, especially in biology. Students should master these skills in order to be able to apply scientific knowledge to solve problems related to science. The aim of this study was to investigate male and female senior high school students’ scientific literacy skills. The current study employed a survey method. The samples of the study consisted of the eleventh graders from three public senior high schools (SMAN) in Malang: SMAN 8 Malang, SMAN 7 Malang, and SMAN 1 Malang. The research data were analysed using an independent-samples t-test. The analysis result showed that there was a significant difference between male and female students’ scientific literacy skills. Female students tend to perform better in scientific literacy skills than male students (p = 0.002). Around 2.33% of the male students were on level 0, 23.26% on level 1, 51.16% on level 2, and 23.26% on level 3. On the other hand, 4.05 % of the female students were found on level 1, 56.76 % on level 2, and 39.19% on level 3. This condition suggests that an innovative learning to empower students’ scientific literacy skills needs to be introduced to biology learning.
The 21st-century learning emphasizes the students’ ability to find out for a variety of sources, formulate a problem, think analytically, cooperation and collaborate in solving problems. Science process skills are essential competencies that must be achieved in the 21st century. These skills can also assist students in logical thinking, asking rational questions, and solving problems in their everyday life. The current research aimed to investigate the level of senior high school students’ science process skills. This research was a survey which involved four public senior high schools (SMAN), namely SMAN 4 Malang, SMAN 7 Malang, SMA 8 Malang, and SMAN 1 Turen. The research data were analyzed using an unpaired t-test. The results of the analysis showed that there was a difference between the male students’ science process skills and the female students’ science process skills (p 0.002). It was reported that 23% of the female students had achieved criteria 1 and around 34% had accomplished criteria 2. On the other hand, 26% of the male students had attained criteria 1 and only 17% of them had performed criteria 2. These findings suggest that an innovative learning model needs to be applied to empower the students’ science process skills.
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