Development of Alternative Thinking Strategy Curriculum Design to Improve Academic, Social and Emotional Competence

Abstract

The majority of curriculum designs focus on academic competencies, and only very few curricular are designed that not only improve academic abilities but also improve students' social emotional and psychological competencies. In this research, the researcher designed an alternative thinking strategy curriculum and investigated its impact in improving students' social emotional competence, psychological health and academic competence. Quasi-experiment design was used involving 30 secondary schools who participated in the study. The research sample was divided into two groups, a control and experimental group, from a random cluster. The experimental group received the alternative thinking strategy curriculum (15 schools) and the control group followed the regular national curriculum (15 schools). The subjects investigated are science and language. Two-level hierarchical linear model analysis was used to investigate the impact of an alternative thinking strategies curriculum. Findings of this research show that alternative thinking strategy curriculum design is not only able to improve students’ social and emotional competence, but is also able to increase students' academic achievements. This can be seen in the average increase in student academic achievement and better student attitudes compared to students in the control group who received the national curriculum intervention. The most superior in providing an impact on each aspect is the cluster with medium frequency or the second cluster (C2). Another cluster shows that the implementation of the alternative thinking strategy curriculum is less than optimal regarding aspects of suitability, quality, responsiveness and reach of the curriculum. This is due to differences in the duration of implementation time. This alternative thinking strategy curriculum design also needs to consider students' cultural aspects related to geographic location. This is important to do as content for intervention in improving students' social and emotional competence.