Implementation of asking and group competition learning strategies
to improve critical thinking skill
Desi Fitria Wulandaria and Nuryani Y Rustamanb
aEducation Univercity of Indonesia, Bandung, Indonesia bEducation Univercity of Indonesia, Bandung, Indonesia
Abstract
The aim of this research to examine physic learning strategies base of asking activities and group Competition (PLSAC) in order to improve Senior High School student’s critical thinking skills. This research was carried out by using quasi experimental method. Senior High School students at XII grade in Tasikmalaya West Java chosen as the subject of this research and two classes were taken sample at physics subject topic. This research revealed that the student which used physics learning strategy base of asking activities and group competition(PLSAC) significantly had more critical thinking skills than those that used conventional method. The average of N-gain of critical thinking skills for experiment class was 0,38 while for control class was 0,27. Teachers and students gave good comments on the implemented learning strategies. We conclude that Physic Learning Strategy base of Asking activities and group Competition (PLSAC) is better than conventional learning strategies in improving the student’s critical thinking skill.
Keywords learning strategies, asking and group competition, critical thinking skill
1. Introduction
Commitment to promote critical thinking skills has become one of the main agenda of education program in Indonesia. Secondary School Competency Standards mention that secondary school students are expected to: (1) establish and apply information or knowledge in a logical, critical, creative, and innovative, (2) demonstrate the ability to think logically, critical, creative, and innovative in decision-making; (3) demonstrate the ability to analyze and solve complex problems (Permendiknas, 2006).
Based on preliminary studies in the form of observational toward physic learning process, teachers tought in lecture method, which the teacher gave examples of physic questions, then students were asked to do it individually. In the end, students who had already completed answering the questions then asked to write it on the board in front of the class. It was observed that less than half of the students in the class were involved in learning process. Question and Answer as well as argumentation activities in physic learning process were difficult to find. On the other hand, physics is still the unpopular subject for most of then students. In accordance with a study done by (Shook & Mee, 2002; Orneck, Robinson & Haugan, 2008) which found many students considers studying physic as a daunting task.
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of students' critical thinking skills improvement between the student who gain a physic learning strategy base of asking activities and group competition and student who received conventional learning strategy?"
2.
Materials and methods
2.1 The Physics Learning Strategy Base of Asking Activities and Group Competition
(PLSAC)
The physics learning strategy base of asking activities and group competition (PLSAC), contains cooperative learning, reading, questioning and looking for possible answers, group ‘tournament’ (competition) and ends with reflections. Stages of learning undertaken by this strategy were as follows:
1). Reading phase. In the early stages before the learning process, students were given homework to find out various phenomena in everyday life that relate to the material that will be discussed in class, then they have to make one questions related to the material. He also must strive to provide possible answers of the questions made. Students were assigned to communicate the questions maximum shortly before the learning process begins.
2). The meeting begins with a preliminary class teaching, teachers collect students’ assignment.
3). Questioning (Asking) phase. Students in groups read the materials of MMI program provided by the teacher. Students task here were that everyone should make one question and possible answers to these questions based on existing learning resources MMI with material specification set by the teacher. This specification was intended to make the discussion not too broad and more focused.
4). ‘Tournament’ phase (Competition). After the group discussion session, the class continued with tournament, quiz competitions between groups. Every person in every group will get their turn to ask questions as well as a jury of their own questions. Teacher serves as a facilitator as well as an expert source of concepts and revise the content constructs of question and answer made by the students.
5). After all the students had a turn, then the tournament was completed, and the class tournament scores were calculated. Teachers gave awards for student performances. 6). Reflection stage: teachers guided students to make summary. Then, the teacher asks the
students to write the conclusion of the topics which has been discussed as well as reconsidering the questions and issues raised on the preliminary task. The task was made as students’ homework.
2.2 Critical thinking skill
Indicators of critical thinking skills studied used Ennis critical thinking indicators. Critical thinking skills are translated into 5 indicator, namely: (1) elementary clarification; (2) the basics support; (3) inference; (4) advanced clarification; and (5) strategies and tactics. Each stage of thinking further elaborated in more specific indicators. Indicators of critical thinking in Ennis are presented in Table 1.
Table 1. Critical thinking skills indicators according to Ennis. Critical Thinking Sub Critical Thinking Explanation
Elementary clarification
Focusing questions Identifying / formulate questions, formulate answers criteria
Analyze arguments Identifying conclusion, the reason, the relevance, the similarities and differences
Ask and / or answer questions of clarification and / or challenge
Experts, there is no conflict of interest, reputation, know the risks
Investigating and / or considering the observation report.
Inference Create and / or consider deduction
Identifying assumptions. The reasons stated and not stated Strategies and
tactics
Determining a course of action Identifying problems, selecting criteria, formulate alternatives, decide, reviewing and monitoring Interact with others. Label, a logical strategy, rhetoric and
presentation strategies
2.3 Methods and research design
This study used a quasi-experimental method. Quasi experiments used to compare the increase in critical thinking skills of students using a physics learning strategy base of asking activities and competition group. The study design used nonequivalent control group design (Sugiyono, 2008). The instruments used were (1) a test of critical thinking skills in the form of multiple choice questions, (2) a questionnaire to determine students’ and teachers’ responses. Data processing done by calculating the normalized gain scores and the two mean difference test using SPSS, while the questionnaire data in qualitative scale was converted into a quantitative scale.
3. Results and discussion
3.1 The increase of critical thinking skill
SWUP Figure 1. Comparison of Critical thinking skills percentage average score of initial tests, final test and N-gain between experimental class and control class.
Based on data collected on the average score of preliminary tests, final test and N-gain had showed that the average score in preliminary test in experimental class was 33.2% from the ideal score, while the average score in control class was 36.7 % of the ideal score. Furthermore, based on data collected the average score of the final test showed that the average score of the final test in experimental class was 77.8% of the ideal score, while in control class was 71.2% of the ideal score. N-gain Average for the experimental class was 0.38 and control class was 0.27. The average N-gain for the experimental class was in medium category while the average N-gain in control class was in lower category. Thus the average N-gain of experiment class was higher than the average N-gain in control class.
The results showed that the acquisition of N-gain in the experimental class was highest in basic clarification indicator that was 0.53 in the medium category and the lowest occurred in inference indicators that was 0.20 catagorized in lower category, while in the control class the highest N- gain in basic clarification indicator was 0.50 in the medium category and the lowest occurred in inference indicators that was 0.09 catagorized in the low category. From the analysis showed an increase of N-gain students’ critical thinking average in experiment class was higher than the control class. Comparison of N-gain critical thinking skills of each indicator can be seen in Figure 2.
Normality test of critical thinking data distribution in students' experiment class and control class conducted using One-Sample Kolmogorov–Smirnov Test. The results obtained indicated that the distribution of data were normally on the significance of 0.128 for the experimental class and 0.194 for control class. Homogeneity test for variant critical thinking data of students' in experiment class and control class used the Levene test (Test of Homogeneity of Variances), which showed that the variant of data homogeneous at 0.469 significance. After an increase in critical thinking skills data showed normally distributed and homogeneous then the next step was to do parametric statistical test (t test with α = 0.005). Independent Samples Test result showed that there were significant differences between the increase in critical thinking skills in experimental class and control class based on the value of t = 5,738; and the significance of 0.000. Based on the analysis of t test can be concluded that the increase in critical thinking skills in experiment class was better than the increase in critical thinking skills in control class.
3.2 Students’ responses against implementation of Physics Learning Strategy Base of
Asking Activities and Group competition (PLSAC)
Based on student responses obtained can be concluded that the students gave positive responses to the implementation of physics learning strategy base of asking activities and competition group, as can be seen in Table 2.
Table 2. Summary of student responses to the implementation of Physics Learning Strategy Base Of Asking Activities and Group Competition (PLSAC).
No Statement
Percentage of Answers Yes No 1 I am pleased to learn physics with PLSAC 97 2 Learning activities with PLSAC stimulate my desire to ask a lot of questions
in addition to those already assigned.
82
3 Learning with PLSAC is easy to follow. 73,5 4 Learning with PLSAC encouraged me to think more critically. 76 5 Learning with PLSAC encouraged me to think more creatively. 76 6 Learning with PLSAC add my motivation to learn physic 76 7 According to my opinion studying in a group is very pleasant 94 8 I feel the task of reading, making questions and its possible answers in physic
learning process burden me.
73.5
9 I feel "tournament" session in physic learning encouraged me to prepare myself more in order to be the best at that session.
76
10 I feel "tournament" session in physic learning burden me. 94 11 I feel studying in a group preventing me to better understand the physics
topics because I need to interact with friends which takes a bit of my learning time in class.
94
12 Learning activities with PLSAC did not encourage me to better understand the material to be studied.
14 Learning with PLSAC prevent me to develop myselves in learning because we have to argue with another student.
94
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3.3 Teacher’s responses against implementation of Physics Learning Strategy Base of
Asking Activities and Group Competition (PLSAC)
Based on teachers’ responses obtained in the study, it can be concluded that the teacher gave a positive response to the implementation of PLSAC. The teacher said that this learning strategy has the potential to improve the quality of physics learning process. The weakness of this strategy was, in order to be more effective, it first needed habituation to make students familiar with this learning strategy because it was different from the usual one before and for materials that require the application of mathematical, learning in the classroom will require more time in the phase of reflection where teachers check students comprehension and will reduce the time of class tournament. Advantages of this strategy were; it could increased the students’ motivation to read lessons before coming to class because there was a pre learning session and they wanted to be the best in the tournament session. This strategy can also improve students’ participation / activity in the classroom.
3.4 Discussion
The positive result of this learning strategy in accordance with the objectives when the learning strategy was proposed. As Golding (2011) has taught critical thinking skills by using Socratic questioning techniques in a inquiry community. Toledo (2006), used the approach of asking by online. Macknight (2000) reported the use of web-based communications base on Socrates Question to improve students' critical thinking abilities. From some of these studies there is a similarity of methods used to teach critical thinking skills. The similarities described in asking activity and discussion that occurs in the forum discussion group to facilitate student’s interaction.
Craig et al. (2008) reported the use of questions on narrative in multimedia learning environments. The use of questions to support comprehension, problem solving and reasoning. This method forces students to answer questions during the process of reading that can improve text learning. From the above it can be concluded that the use of methods of asking can improve critical thinking skills.
The use of group define as cooperative learning can also be used to improve critical thinking skills. Qin et (1995) reported a sal.tudy to find positive effects of cooperative learning in improving critical thinking skills. Cooperative learning is a popular model that is often used in almost all subjects. The use of cooperative learning in physics, among others, research conducted by Heller et al. (1992) aimed to discover the effects of cooperative learning in physics problem solving performance. In a cooperative group that functions well, students can share concepts and procedural knowledge as well as the role of the argument, asking for clarification, justification, and the elaboration of each other, so that the resulting solution is better than working individually. Benckert & Pettersson (2008) investigated the use of discussion groups in the physics learning problem solving process. Ho & Boo (2007) investigated the use of cooperative learning in teaching physics. The results showed that the use of cooperative learning can improve academic achievement, helping students to understand the concepts of physics and increase students' motivation to learn.
of the text, which were reading, understanding or responding to the readings.
Both competition and cooperation learning have great opportunity to influence the performance of students in the class. After all, humans are basically like working together, debating, discussing, and always try to compete with the opponent in debate or discussion competency (Sharan, 1990). Lam et al. (2004) found that competition has positive effect on student performance results and motivation to learn in the classroom. While Parrenas & Parrenas (1993) stated that cooperative learning can facilitate students to acquire higher academic achievement. Therefore, both individual and team reward should exist in cooperative learning environment, or reward for participation in the productivity of the team proved to be very useful (Johnson et al., 1998). For that, then Wynne (1995) recommended a synthesis of cooperation-competition teaching strategy that combines the positive aspects of cooperative learning and motivation competition between groups using competition among team collaboration. If placed correctly in the competitive environment, cooperative learning can strengthens the contribution of each individual in achieving collective goals and can provide a very positive influence on student learning (Dyson & Grineski, 2001).
Cooperation and competition are teaching strategy that combines components of cooperative learning with positive motivation aspects of competition through inter-group competition between collaborative team, as has been reported the effectiveness of its use by Attle & Baker (2007) in sports management students. As has also been reported by Tauer & Harackiewicz (2004), that in combination with group learning, cooperative inter-group competition can increase intrinsic motivation of participants consistently. The findings concluded that the combination of cooperation and competition are able to facilitate motivation, enjoyment and performance of the participants. In the proposed learning strategy, these structures are in the tournament session.
4.
Conclusion and remarks
Improvement of students’ critical thinking skills using physics learning strategy base of asking activities and group competition were significantly higher than students who received conventional learning startegy. The average N-gain students’ critical thinking skills in experiment class was 0.38 (medium category) and the control class was 0.27 (low category), this showed that the use of PLSAC learning strategy was more effective than conventional learning strategy. Teachers and students respond well to this learning strategy. Based on the results of this study, it is recommended that the physics learning strategy base of asking activities and group competition to used in physics learning process.
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