The Ability of Critical Thinking of Elementary School Students Using a Graphic Organizer Instrument

Abstract

Critical thinking is an emphasis on the 2013 curriculum, as an activity in learning that must be done by the teacher for that it needs analysis to describe student abilities. This research uses descriptive quantitative research method with a sample of 318 elementary school students who are in public schools in the Tampan District, Pekanbaru, Riau Province. The results of the study found that out of 18 schools with a sample of 318 students there were 9 schools that received the 'not good' category, 9 schools that received the 'not good' category. Viewed from the critical thinking indicator, it turns out that the student's ability score reaches 23 with the category of underperformance or very low under the standard of mastery learning. It can be concluded that the ability of students in critical thinking is still very low and needs government attention to improve teacher learning.

Incorporating critical thinking and English as a medium of instruction for elementary school students

“…Little information is found about how CT is nurtured in elementary school in Indonesian contexts, especially in the International Class Program, where English is used as a medium of instruction. Some studies (see Kurniaman et al, 2020;Sidiq et al, 2021) investigated elementary school students' CT, but they did not specifically focus on the class where English was used as medium of instruction. Kurniaman et al (2020) conducted a survey in Riau to describe elementary school students' CT in reading comprehension by using a concept mapping as a medium.…”

“…Some studies (see Kurniaman et al, 2020;Sidiq et al, 2021) investigated elementary school students' CT, but they did not specifically focus on the class where English was used as medium of instruction. Kurniaman et al (2020) conducted a survey in Riau to describe elementary school students' CT in reading comprehension by using a concept mapping as a medium. Kurniaman et al (2020) found that the students' ability in CT was low due to teachers' lack of knowledge and practice of critical thinking pedagogy.…”

“…Kurniaman et al (2020) conducted a survey in Riau to describe elementary school students' CT in reading comprehension by using a concept mapping as a medium. Kurniaman et al (2020) found that the students' ability in CT was low due to teachers' lack of knowledge and practice of critical thinking pedagogy. Another study about critical thinking for elementary school students in Surakarta was done by Sidiq et al, (2021) to test the effectiveness of HOTs-based science questions habituation in science class.…”

“…Sidiq et al, (2021) revealed that the students in experimental class showed higher level of critical thinking than the students in the conventional class. Both studies (Kurniaman et al, 2020;Sidiq et al, 2021) did not provide information about critical thinking strategies implemented for the class that used English as medium of instruction. Thus, this study aims to understand how critical thinking is implemented in the elementary school with International Class Program.…”