Empowering Critical Thinking Skills in Indonesia Archipelago: Study on Elementary School Students in Ternate

Said Hasan¹, Ferny Margo Tumbel², Aloysius Duran Corebima³ 
(1. Department of Biology, Faculty of Teacher Training and Education, Khairun University; 2. Department of Biology, Manado University; 3. Department of Biology, State University of Malang)

Abstract: A quasi experimental research had been conducted to uncover the potency of STAD, TGT, STAD+TGT, and conventional learning, on critical thinking skills of fifth grade elementary school students in Ternate-Indonesia. Research data had been analyzed in non-factorial ancova and pos-hoc analysis had been carried out in LSD test. Data analysis result showed that STAD+TGT have highest potency to empower student critical thinking skills, followed by TGT and STA; conventional learning strategy had the lowest potency. TGT, STAD, and conventional learning had corrected critical thinking skills scores respectively 5.93%, 8.45%, 40.21% lower significantly than STAD+TGT. It is strongly advised for teachers to use STAD+TGT learning as well as STAD and TGT learning in their daily learning in order to empower critical thinking skills of students.

Key words: critical thinking skills, TGT learning, STAD learning, elementary school, archipelago area