Critical
thinking is one of essential components in mathematics learning and its process
becomes the focus to improve students’ critical thinking. In mathematics
instruction, mathematics can not be separated from problem solving, and
critical thinking can help them in such a thing. Contextual problem is one of
various problems which is related to context in a real life and can be found
easily in topic direct-inverse proportions. This kind of problem gives
opportunity to think more critically to find the solutions. When solving
problems, students proceed information differently and it is affected by their
cognitive style. One-dimensional model of variation in cognitive style is
reflective-impulsive style.
The purpose of this research is to describe the
critical thinking processes of reflective and impulsive
junior-high-school-students in solving contextual problems of direct and
inverse proportions. This research is descriptive qualitative research by using
test and interview methods. The subjects consist of a reflective and an
impulsive students of class 7-8 State Junior High School 5 Sidoarjo.
The
results showed that there were some similiarities and differences between
reflective and impulsive student’s critical thinking processes in solving
contextual problems of direct and inverse proportions: (1) both students
conducted interpretation by categorizing what are given and asked, but the
reflective student clarified meaning in detail, while the impulsive student not
in detail; (2) the reflecticve student analyzed well by examining ideas and
identifying arguments as well as reasons, while the impulsive one did not
analyse well that is caused by inability to find unstated information; (3) both
students do inferences by querying evidence, forming hypothesis, and trying to
prove the hypothesis and to draw a conclusion, but in querying evidence, the
reflective student mentioned the relevant-irrelevant information confidently
and used all relevant information to solve problem, while the impulsive student
got confused in distinguishing between them; (4) both students carried out
evaluation by assessing credibility of claims and quality of arguments before
jumping to the next steps, yet the impulsive did not take any further actions;
(5) the reflective student did explanation by stating results, justifying
procedures, and presenting arguments clearly, while the impulsive student not
clear (6) the reflcetive student always performed self-regulation by doing
monitoring and correcting what they have done, while the impulsive one barely
performed self-regulation.
Keywords: critical thinking
process, contextual problem, direct and inverse proportions, reflective-impulsive
style.