The Application of Inquiry Learning to Train Critical Thinking Skills on Light Material of Primary School Students

Abstract

Critical thinking skills are seen as important skills for survival and have become one of Indonesia's educational goals. The results of initial observation of critical thinking skills in Kemangsen 2 primary school involving students of grade V, revealed that 95% students possessed score 2 (with the scale, ranging from 1 to 4). Therefore, critical thinking skills of students need to be improved by applying hands-based learning of Hands on Science; one of which is through inquiry learning. The purpose of this study is to determine the effectiveness of inquiry learning model in trained critical thinking skills of elementary students (n = 22). This research was conducted by One Group Pretest-Posttest Design. Data were analyzed using t-dependent tests for overall critical thinking skills and descriptive analysis for critical thinking skills for each indicator. The critical thinking skills trained in this study include evaluation, explanation, interpretation, and inference based on the results of data analysis. To sum up, inquiry learning is classified as effective in terms of training students' critical thinking skills. The critical thinking skills of students should be continuously trained on appropriate materials or topics.