Improvement of Student Critical Thinking Skills with the Natural Product Mini Project Laboratory Learning

Aliefman Hakim (Study Program of Chemistry Education, University of Mataram, Jl. Majapahit 62, Mataram 83125)
Liliasari Liliasari (Science Education Program, Graduate School, Indonesia University of Education, Jl. Setiabudi 229, Bandung)
Asep Kadarohman (Science Education Program, Graduate School, Indonesia University of Education, Jl. Setiabudi 229, Bandung)
Yana Maolana Syah (Organic Chemistry Division, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Bandung Institute of Technology – ITB, Jl. Ganesha 10, Bandung 40132)

Indonesian Journal of Chemistry
Vol 16, No 3 (2016)

This research aims to investigate effect of learning using natural product mini project laboratory on students’ critical thinking skills. The research was conducted on sixth semester of 59 students of chemistry and chemistry education program from one of the state universities in West Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia in 2012/2013. This research revealed class where the student learn using natural product mini project laboratory had more critical thinking skills than those using verification laboratory. The average n-gain of critical thinking skills for experiment class was 0.58 while for the control class was 0.37. The highest n-gain in the experiment class was 0.70 for “deciding on an action (selecting criteria to judge possible solutions) indicators”, while the smallest n-gain was 0.47 for “the making and judging value of judgments (balancing, weighing, and deciding) indicators. We concluded that the natural product mini project laboratory was better than verification laboratory in improving the students’ critical thinking skills.