Shadow Education in Indonesia: Is It Relevant to Students’ Critical Thinking Skills in Chemistry Learning?

Abstract

Private tutoring, also known as shadow education (SE), is significant in the view of Indonesian society. It attains public reliance on children’s success at school. Although SE seems to be promising to elevate students’ achievements in school, this still needs to be proven. With the development of 21st-century skills, can SE make itself worthy of being a part of proper supplementary education? This research aims to reveal how relevant SE is to develop students’ 21st-century skills, especially critical thinking (CT) skills. This study involved 193 students from 3 different ranks of schools in Surakarta, Indonesia. This mixed methods explanatory research used a computerized testlet instrument to obtain quantitative data about students’ CT skills in Chemistry. Open-ended questionnaires and open-ended interviews were used to obtain qualitative data about students’ tendencies in their SE. Interviews were also performed to hear SE tutors’ voices about the SE field in which they worked. The quantitative data were analyzed using Rasch modeling to reveal the interaction between the items and students’ CT skills. The modeling results showed that SE still seems less significant in responding to the community’s wishes about their children’s success at school, especially as related to CT skills. However, the results also showed that SE can aid those with moderate cognitive ability. Furthermore, the qualitative results are worth considering by those who will take or build SE in future. Thus, SE can be a proper supplement for formal education.