Critical thinking skills : The academic ability , mastering concepts , and analytical skill of undergraduate students

Tutut Indria Permana a,1,*, Iin Hindun a,2, Ndzani Latifatur Rofi’ah b,3, Ardiani Samti Nur Azizah c,4 a Department of Biology Education, Faculty of Teacher Training and Education, Universitas Muhammadiyah Malang, Jl. Raya Tlogomas 246, Malang, East Java 65144, Indonesia b Department of Biology Education, Faculty of Science and Technology, Universitas Islam Negeri Walisongo, Jl. Walisongo No.3-5, Tambakaji, Ngaliyan, Kota Semarang, Semarang, Central Java 50185, Indonesia c Department of English Education, Faculty of Teacher Training and Education, Universitas Islam Kadiri, Jl. Sersan Suharmaji No.38, Manisrenggo, Kediri, East Java 64128, Indonesia 1 tutut.indria@umm.ac.id*; 2 iinhindun@umm.ac.id, 3 ndzani.latifatur@yahoo.com; 4 ardianisamtina@gmail.com * corresponding author

assistance in understanding concepts because learning with understanding involves more than just adding new concepts and processes to existing knowledge; it also involves conceptual change and the creation of integrated knowledge structures.Furthermore, educators should empower a variety of higher-order thinking skill (HOTS) during the learning process.Higher-order thinking involves the learning of complex judgmental skills such as critical thinking and problem solving (Heong et al., 2011;Magsino, 2014;Tofade, Elsner, & Haines, 2013).Without such skills, they will lose competitiveness in this globalization era (Trilling & Fadel, 2009).
Critical thinking skills belong to higher-order thinking skills that need to be empowered in today's educational process (Phan, 2010).Critical thinking skills could be defined as logical and reflective thinking skills that focus on determining what must be done (Ennis, 2011;Karakoç, 2016;Radulović & Stančić, 2017).An individual who has the ability to think critically are able to see and solve problems (Ghazivakili et al., 2014;Heong et al., 2011;Magsino, 2014;Tofade et al., 2013;Ulger, 2018).Through the empowerment of these skills, students will be facilitated to become individuals who tend to have focus, find the reason, and conduct a comprehensive analysis to make a conclusion and solving a problem (Finken & Ennis, 1993;Karakoç, 2016;Ulger, 2018).
Moreover, critical thinking skills are widely known as essential skills (Bahr, 2010;Bell, 2010;Karakoç, 2016).Graduates students without critical thinking skills will have difficulty competing in the work environment and in the midst of society (Takeda, 2016;Talat & Chaudhry, 2014).It is no wonder most educators consider that this skill is the most desirable goal of the learning process in school.Empowering critical thinking skills is not only limited to primary and secondary education level but also important in the college education level (Heong et al., 2011).
Botany is one of the subjects in the Department of Biology Education at the Faculty of Teacher Training and Education (FTTE), Universitas Muhammadiyah Malang (UMM), East Java Province-Indonesia.This course is normally taken by students of 2 nd semester.The various factors in this course are estimated to be correlated with the students' critical thinking skills level.One of these factors is the analytical skill of article analysis.According to Ghazivakili et al., (2014), Irwanto, Rohaeti, Widjajanti, andSuyanta (2017) analytical skill is an activity that encourages students to evaluate some information they get.Through this activity, the student will be trained to think critically about the articles they obtained.Analytical skills refer to the ability to collect and analyze information, problem-solve, and make decisions (Ghazivakili et al., 2014;Phan, 2010).Beside analytical skill, another factor considered to be related to critical thinking skills is mastering concepts.Several studies reported that the mastering concepts ability has a relationship with students' critical thinking skill level (Alatas, 2014;Chukwuyenum, 2013;Herayanti & Habibi, 2013;Radulović & Stančić, 2017).In activities that trigger critical thinking, students are better able to understand something has occurred.This deeper understanding allows students to better analyze the circumstances surrounding the occurrence and differing point of view about the occurrence (Tsai, Chen, Chang, & Chang, 2013).
The various factors are estimated to be correlated with the students' critical thinking skill, not only analytical skill and mastering concepts, but also academic ability.In some previous studies Karmana (2011) and Mamu (2014), academic ability is seen as one of the factors likely to affect students' critical thinking skills.An individual with high academic ability tends to have good critical thinking skills, whereas low academic students tend to lack critical thinking skills (Setiawati & Corebima, 2017).Karbalaei (2012) argues that a strong critical thinking pedagogy that encourages students' critical knowledge, skills, and dispositions may improve students' academic success.However, according to Kanbay (2017), there is no relationship between critical thinking skill with academic achievement.The improvement of academic achievement proceeded to the next grade.Thus, the focus of this study is to find out what factors are correlated with the critical thinking skills of students in Botany class.This study will also want to find out which factors are the most determinant in determining the students' critical thinking skills level.Therefore, the result of this study could be a basic reference or consideration in designing the learning process that is able to empower the critical thinking skills of students.

METHOD
The correlational research was conducted in the Department of Biology Education, FTEE, UMM, East Java Province-Indonesia.This research was involving 112 undergraduate students in the Department of Biology Education, UMM.All the students who take Botany class were chosen as the research subject.There were four variables measured in this study, namely academic ability (AA), mastering concepts (MC), analytical skill (AS), and critical thinking skills.The data of academic ability was obtained from students' grade point in the previous semester.The data of concepts' mastery was obtained from Botany final exam score.The data of critical level of article analysis was obtained from critical analysis task score which students were ordered to analyze the scientific article critically.The scientific articles used were related to ecology role of algae (Cyanophyta, Rhodophyta, Chlorophyta, Diatom, and Phaeophyta), mold (slime and water mold), fungi (Zygomycota, Ascomycota, Basidiomycota, and Deuteromycota), and Bryophyta (liverwort, hornwort, and mosses) in environmental.The critical thinking skills data was obtained from the students' final exam answers.The final exam was designed as a question that facilitates the students to think in higher-order level and consisting of four analysis questions (essay).From these answers, the students' critical thinking skills level was accessed by using a critical thinking rubric developed by Zubaidah, Corebima, and Mistianah (2015), showed in Table 1.The rubric was developed according to characteristic of critical thinking skills (Ennis, 2011;Finken & Ennis, 1993).

5
-The all concepts are correct, clear, and specific -The all answer elaborations are correct, clear, specific, and supported with strong, correct, and clear argument(s) -The thinking plot is good, the all concepts are linked and integrated -The language used is good and correct -The all aspects appear, the evidences served are good and balance

4
-Most of the concepts are correct, clear, and less specific -Most of the answer elaborations are correct, clear, and less specific -The thinking plot is good, the all concepts are linked and integrated -The language used is good and little mistake(s) -The all aspects appear, but unbalance 3 -The small part of the concepts is correct and clear -The small part of the answer elaborations is correct and clear, but the reason and argument undergirding are unclear -The thinking plot is good enough, and small parts are linked -The language used is good enough, and there are small wrong spellings -Most of the aspects appeared are likely correct 2 -The concepts are less focus or extravagant or doubtful -The answer elaborations were less supporting -The plot is less good, the concepts are unlinked -The language used is good, the sentences are incomplete -The small parts of aspects appeared are likely correct

1
-The all concepts are incorrect -The reasons are incorrect -The thinking plot is bad -The language used is bad -The all aspects are inadequate 0 No answer or the answer is incorrect All the variables then tested by multiple linear regression (α= 0.05).Before multiple linear regression tests were performed, the data were tested using classical assumption tests: Shapiro-Wilk test to see the normality of data, Durbin-Watson test to determine the presence of autocorrelation, as well as multicollinearity test.Furthermore, the data also tested using Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) to find out whether the predictor (variables) significantly has a relationship with the criteria (critical thinking skills).The multiple linear regression used to find the multiple correlation coefficients to show how big the contribution of the variable measured toward critical thinking skills.These coefficients were used to determine the linear regression line.

Classical assumption tests
The result of the Shapiro-Wilk test showed that the data have a normal distribution (Table 2).While the Durbin-Watson test revealed that the data have negative autocorrelation (Table 3) and also no multicollinearity (Table 4).Therefore, the data can be analyzed using multiple regression test.

Hypothesis testing
Table 5 shows the results of the ANOVA to find out whether the predictor significantly has a relationship with the criteria or not.Based on Table 5, the F statistic is 336,559 with P-value < α (0.05).Consequently, it can be concluded that academic ability, analytical skill, and mastering concepts significantly have a relationship with students' critical thinking skills in Botany class.6, the R statistic is equal to 0.950, it means that there is a strong correlation between the three predictors and the criteria.Beside that R square is 0.903, information that can be obtained is academic ability, analytical skill, and mastering concepts have contributing 90.3% in explaining the students' critical thinking skills in Botany class, while 9.7% of the results are explained by other variables.The relative contribution and effective contribution for each predictor of the criteria are presented in Table 7.Based on Table 7, the effective contribution of academic ability is 32.25%, analytical skill is 54.26%, whereas mastering concepts amounted to 3.84%.Thus, the three variables made an effective contribution of up to 90.34%.The result regression coefficient to show how big the contribution of the variable measured toward critical thinking skills is showed in Table 8.Moreover, the linear regression line based on the regression coefficient is described in Equation ( 1).Students' critical thinking skills become an essential goal in education.It is related to a perceived need to deal with the information explosion in this era.However these skills are neither inborn nor naturally acquired, yet must be trained in students (Changwong, Sukkamart, & Sisan, 2018;Mangena & Chabeli, 2005;Su, Ricci, & Mnatsakanian, 2016;Suarniati, Hidayah, & Handarini, 2018;Ulger, 2018;Visande, 2014;Zabit, 2010).Based on equation (1), the result indicated that analytical skill has the highest contribution to students' critical thinking skills.Students who can think critically must often train themselves to analyze a problem.One of the learning activities in Botany class requires students to analyze information (e.g. research articles) related to algae, fungi, and bryophytes.According to Phan (2010) this activity accommodating students' ability to interpret and evaluate information presented to them and determine whether the information (printed and online) is valid or not.Furthermore, students solve the problem related to the information in their final exam.Bahr (2010) convey that this assessment helps provide evidence of whether students can reason analytically.They were forced to write their explanation based on their analysis.Some previous study agrees that this activity habituates students to make critical analyses of the problem they deal with while strengthening their critical thinking skills (Abdullah, Parris, Lie, Guzdar, & Tour, 2015;Phan, 2010).For the reason that analytical thinking is one of the most important aspect of critical thinking skills (Caroselli, 2009) and very crucial for graduate students who often to become researchers (Abdullah et al., 2015;Phan, 2010).
As well as analytical skill, the academic ability also contributes effectively to students' critical thinking skills (32.25%) as served in Table 7.In line with some previous research showed that an individual with high academic ability tends to have good critical thinking skills, and vice versa (Karagöl & Bekmezci, 2015;Setiawati & Corebima, 2017).Academic ability is related to an individual's beliefs and self-evaluations regarding the nature of their skills and abilities.This is also related to students' personal views about how skills and abilities in their work, including when they solve the problem in their exam.This student's academic ability is also closely related to academic motivation (Shim & Walczak, 2012) and academic maturity (Toppin & Chitsonga, 2016).When students have high academic abilities, they will be encouraged and motivated to analyze information (e.g.problems) critically.This means that students with high abilities showed high performance in solving problems (Karbalaei, 2012), which is become particularly aspect of students' critical thinking skills.It is obvious that academic ability correlates with critical thinking skills.
Furthermore, the other predictor which has the lowest contribution (4.25%) to students' critical thinking skills is mastering concepts ability (Table 7).However several studies showed that students' understanding of the learning concepts is strongly responsible for the high critical skills of students (Alatas, 2014;Herayanti & Habibi, 2013;Setiawati & Corebima, 2017).Students who can understand concepts usually have a high literacy of reading/ information.They are used to obtain information from various sources, then writing their understanding of it and also assessing whether the information is relevant to the problem, and finally using the right information to determine the problem-solving (Donnelly & Fitzmaurice, 2011;Sorensen et al., 2012).For that reason, mastering concepts ability becomes one factor in charge of the students' critical thinking skills maturation.
Based on the discussion, there is a correlation between all of three predictors (analytical skill, academic ability, and mastering concepts) to students' critical thinking skills and the linear regression line can be seen in Equation (1).This result could be a basic reference in designing the learning process which is able to empower the critical thinking skills of students.For example, educators can accommodate students' critical skill using the scientific process (Gultepe, 2016), such as problem-based learning (Birgili, 2015;Ulger, 2018;Zabit, 2010).

CONCLUSION
The all of three variables, mastering concepts, academic ability, and analytical skill have an effective contribution toward students' critical thinking skills, with the percentage 3.84%, 32.25%, and 54.26% respectively.The student's analytical skill has the highest contribution to their critical thinking skills.Therefore, the result of this study could be a basic reference in designing the learning process which is able to empower the critical thinking skills of students, such as accommodating their skill in problem-based learning.

Table 1 .
Critical thinking rubric for essay test Score Descriptor

Table 2 .
The result of Shapiro-Wilk test (normality)

Table 3 .
The result of Durbin-Watson test (autocorrelation)

Table 4 .
The result of Durbin-Watson test (collinearity)

Table 5 .
The result of ANOVA

Table 6
presents the summary of the correlation results whether there is a relationship between all predictors and criteria.Column R in Table6is a multiple correlation coefficient, while R square is a value of determination.

Table 6 .
The summary of the correlation result

Table 7 .
The relative and effective contribution result

Table 8 .
The result of regression coefficients Coefficients a