ABSTRACT
Ahsan
Sofyan, 2012. THE
IMPACT OF OPEN-ENDED LEARNING
METHOD TOWARDS STUDENTS’ CRITICAL THINKING ABILITIES (Quasi Eksperiment on
Seventh Grade Students in SMP Negeri 11 Makassar). Thesis Faculty of
Social Science Education. Indonesia University of Education.
Learning
situation and process there made in order
to develop student’s potential; it means that learning process must be oriented
to the students (student active learning). Education’s task is developing
student’s self potential, not feeding through the learning’s material or
forcing students to memorize the data and fact. In this case, the more
innovative learning is needed. One of the systems which is expected can be
increased the students ability of particular thinking is applying the Open-ended approach. Open-ended approach is a learning
approach which is more emphasizing in students’ efforts in order to come to the
answer from the truth or only from the accuracy of student’s answer, students
are facing the problem which has more than one right answer, teacher does not
limit the way students in solving the problems, moreover the teacher gives
freedom to the students for seeking and using many approach towards the
problem.
This
research was conduct in order to find out whether the Open-ended approach can be increasing students’ ability in
critical thinking. The object of this research was the seventh grade students
of SMP Negeri 11 Makassar, and based on the method used that is experiment
method, two classes were chosen to be the contol class and the experiment
class. This research used pretest-posttest design, so that the increasing of
those classes’ ability in critical thinking can be seen.
From
the tabulation of data, before using Open-ended approach
in the students’ critical thinking the result of experiment class and control
class is not really different. After the Open-ended
approach
was used in the experiment class, the ability of the students’ critical
thinking has increased from the average score of the low pretest category
to be high pretest category. Whereas in the
conventional class of critical thinking, the average score of the low pretest
category students, slightly increased and included as middle category. In the
experiment class, the learning result that had the average score of low
category, increasing to be high category. While in the conventional class, the
average score of pretest was slightly increased become the low category. So, it
can be concluded that the learning process using Open-ended approach can be increasing the ability of
students’ critical thinking than the common learning. Open-ended approach can be used by the teacher in
Social Science learning in SMP in order to make the active learning, creative
and also fun.
Keyword: Social Science learning, the Open-ended approach, Critical
Thinking Abilities