The study aims to investigate Person Ability and Item Fit instruments for critical thinking skills of the environment (Eco Critical Thinking Skill) in elementary pre-service teachers. Instrument investigations were carried out by describing item fit, separation of item and person, unidimensionality, and reliability of item and person. The research method was carried out quantitatively by collecting data through an open-answer essay test and an ecocritical thinking skill test. Participants in this study were Elementary School Teacher Education (ESTE) students from 3 universities in Surabaya of East Java, Surakarta of Central Java, and Manggarai of East Nusa Tenggara. The number of participants was 110 ESTE students. Data were analyzed with the Rasch Model WINSTEP software. The result of the study is that 36% of ESTE students have high Person Ability, 58% of them have average Person Ability, and the rest (6%) have low Person Ability. Students who have higher abilities are dominated by students from campus in Surabaya at 50%. Item fit Instrument with Mean Square (MnSq) 0.7 - 1.33. ZSTD -1.4 - 2.0 and Pt-measure Corr 0.49–0.6. The research concludes that an instrument of ecocritical thinking skills is a good fit instrument. The distribution of pre-service teacher qualifications from Surakarta and Manggarai is at a medium level, and students from Surabaya-East Java dominate high ability. Elementary pre-service teachers have the most dominant ability to explain and analyze a phenomenon or fact related to environmental damage.

This study intended to describe the effectiveness of the GEM-CL learning model selaras Bakar Batu cultural practice on chapter heat and temperature. This type of research was quasi-experiment with pretest and post-test control group design. The study population was all students of class XI IPA SMAN 1 Jayapura. The sampling technique used was simple random sampling. The selected classes were XI IPA-3 as an experimental class and class XI IPA-5 as a control class. Data collection instruments were tests based on higher-order thinking skills and questionnaires to collect students’ responses. Data analysis was done by t-test, N-gain, and effect size for data collecting from test data while data from questionnaires were analyzed by descriptive qualitative analysis. It was concluded that the model is effective to apply in physics learning to preserve students’ conceptual understanding and improve students’ higher-order thinking skills. Further study on GEM-CL to other cultural practices and physics chapter in Indonesia would would strengthen this learning model.

This study obtained the current situation of physics teaching, learning, and assessment at the senior high school in Surakarta, Indonesia based on various skills in 21st century. A need-based analysis was conducted to explore students’ current situation that lead to misconception in understanding concept of physics as learning objectives. Through random sampling, students’ questionnaires and teachers questionnaires to over 120 students and 12 teachers were held respectively. The implications showed that generic science skill and interpersonal skills had influenced students’ understanding of physics as the two affecting factors could be the reasons for misconception. From the questionnaires result, it showed that teachers and students of senior high school in Surakarta need a proper diagnostic test to investigate and map students’ misconception in physics classroom especially in difficult learning object such as kinetic gas theory. The four-tier diagnostic test with five possible answers was developed based on the result of need-based analysis and factors affecting students’ misconception which were students’ generic science and interpersonal skills.

No abstract

The study reports on the cause of misconceptions in physics have not been done in a major area. The source of misconceptions are students, teachers and learning resources. Thus misconceptions are often caused by preconception, reasoning, intuition and associative thinking. This study aimed to find other factors affecting misconceptions that lead to students’ alternative conceptions in learning physics, especially in kinetic theory of gases. The identification of factors affecting that influence students’ misconception was conducted by using a set of responses in the questionnaires and administrated to 16 teachers and 66 students from six senior high schools in Surakarta. Interview to six teachers and twelve students as representatives was also held to support the data from questionnaire result. Misconceptions score were collected from the kinetic theory of gases test to explore students’ alternative conceptions in learning physics. Two genuine factors affecting the cause of misconceptions were identified namely interpersonal skills and generic science skills.