Inductive and combinatorial reasoning in international educational context: assessment, measurement invariance, and latent mean differences

Abstract

Indonesian 15-year-old students’ educational achievement has proved to be significantly lower than the international average based on one of the most prominent international large-scale assessments, OECD PISA. This prompted our interest in Indonesian students’ cognitive development during secondary schooling in comparison with that of students who are more successful on the PISA scale. This study aims to describe the development of Indonesian students’ thinking skills, especially inductive and combinatorial reasoning, to map the influencing factors in the development of reasoning skills and make a cross-national comparison study with their Hungarian peers. The sample was drawn from 250 Indonesian and 864 Hungarian 8th and 11th graders. The reliabilities of the tests were acceptable, with Cronbach’s alpha varying between .70 and .86. Results mainly indicated that: (a) the measures of these two constructs were partially invariant across nationalities; (b) the Indonesian students’ reasoning skills did not sufficiently develop between the 8th and 11th grades; (c) the Indonesian students’ inductive and combinatorial reasoning achievement was significantly worse than that of the Hungarian students in 11th grade, but not in 8th grade; and (d) the students’ learning strategies proved to be predictive factors in students’ reasoning skills achievement in both Indonesian and Hungarian contexts, but the level of prediction varied. Overall, the results of the current study provide support for an understanding of Indonesian students’ cognitive development compared to an international benchmark. The findings have implications for revising educational methods in Indonesia and may form the basis for further studies.