Efforts to Improve Students' Critical Thinking Skills in Science Subjects at Elementary School Level (Strategies, Constraints, and Recommendations)

Abstract

Critical thinking skills are important to create graduate competencies that are competitive, especially in the 21st century. However, in practice, there are still things that hinder students' critical thinking. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to describe the level of students' critical thinking skills in terms of analysis of strategies, constraints, and appropriate recommendations related to problems found in efforts to improve students' critical thinking skills in schools. This study uses a descriptive qualitative approach. This study explores the experiences and conditions of schools in improving students' critical thinking skills. This study uses a type of triangulation technique by analyzing the results of interviews, observations, and documents to obtain the validity of the findings. The results of the study indicate that critical thinking skills cannot develop without proper handling in terms of analysis of constraints, strategies that can be applied, and recommendations that can be used to improve students' critical thinking skills, for example by implementing 21st century competencies. These findings are expected to provide solutions for educational units, especially at the elementary school level, to improve students' critical thinking skills.