Mathematical critical thinking ability of students with realistic mathematics learning innovations with ethnomathematics (PMRE)

Abstract

The importance of critical thinking ability is on the demands with the current curriculum which wants students to have the ability to analyze and solve problems, especially in everyday life. However, this ability is still not explored maximally by the teacher in classroom learning. Therefore, this study examines the improvement of critical thinking ability among students who obtained the PMRE approach with students who obtained conventional learning, reviewed as a whole and reviewed according to the high, medium and low mathematical initial ability categories. This research is a quasi-experimental study with nonequivalentpre-test and post-test control-group design. The data obtained were analyzed using the mean difference test namely t-test and mann-whitney. The results showed that: 1) the improvement of critical thinking skills of students who received PMRE approach as a whole was better than students who obtained conventional learning with a moderate category 2) reviewed from mathematical initial ability, increased critical thinking skills of students in the medium category who were getting PMRE learning more better than students who get conventional learning, while for high and low students who get PMRE learning is no better than students who get conventional learning.