Analysis Of Students’ Mathematical Critical Thinking Ability In Middle School

Mathematical critical thinking ability is important for students to make judgments and decisions based on reasoning. This study purposes to analyse students’ mathematical critical thinking ability of junior high school. The mathematical critical thinking ability in this study is the ability to think that involves elements of focus, reason, inference, situation, clarity, and overview in solving problems about circle. This study using qualitative method with descriptive research type. Data were collected by the test of students' mathematical critical thinking ability and interview. The steps consist of developing two tasks based on indicators of critical thinking ability, validating the tasks, asking students to solve the tasks, and analysing students' answer based on indicators of critical thinking ability. The interviews were conducted to confirm the students’ answers. The subjects of this study were six students at the ninth grade (14-15 year-olds) in Banten. The result showed that overall students were able to identification from the information presented. Although the solution they wrote has not been systematically structured. In this case, the element of critical thinking ability mastered by students is reason. Teacher should give students the opportunity to develop mathematical critical thinking ability, so students are able and accustomed to facing various problems around them.