Analysis of students’ critical thinking skills with reflective and impulsive cognitive styles on conservation and environmental knowledge learning

The most important part of the implementation of learning processes is their ability to develop the thinking skills of students. Critical thinking skills are essential in life. The problems that will occur in someone's life can be overcome with critical thinking skills at their disposal (Galbreath, 1999; Trilling & Hood, 1999; Johnson, 2009). Especially in this era of knowledge, critical thinking is indispensable to follow the progress of modernization. A critical thinker will be open to new ideas, ask questions, analyze, and use their critical thinking strategies to discover new meanings. Marzano (1992) creates an outline of the importance of learning to think, in which thinking is required for activities such as (1) developing the attitudes and perceptions that support the creation of positive classroom conditions, (2) integrating knowledge, (3) expanding the horizons of knowledge, (4) actualizing the meaningfulness of knowledge, and (5) developing favorable behavioral thinking. The critical thinking skills of each are not the same. Critical thinking is a skill that must be taught because they are seen as a basic competence of the individual, like reading and writing (Fisher, 2008).

Critical thinking can be intentionally developed in students by educators. A learning process that is intentionally designed and properly implemented in a lesson plan will improve critical thinking. Critical thinking can develop if it is practiced, and there needs to be enough time in the learning process. One way to develop thinking skills in the learning process is by training the students to search and find the problem, analyze the problem, make hypotheses, collect data, test hypotheses, and determine the settlement alternatives.

Critical thinking is one of the skills that must be possessed by all graduates of universities. In general, teaching practices to develop critical thinking in students only pay attention to/accommodate students’ achievement, gender, race, and other factors, but do not accommodate student differences such as cognitive style or learning style. The way students learn is influenced by cognitive style. If an individual's cognitive style is different, the way they learn and think are different as well. According to Acharya (2002), if the students’ style in learning is accommodated, it can increase learning attitudes as well as increase thinking skills, academic achievement, and creativity.

Cognitive style, or thinking style, is a term used in cognitive psychology to describe the way how individuals think, perceive, and remember information (Mahdavinia & Molavizadeh, 2013). According to Ellis (1990), cognitive style is a term used to describe how people receive, conceptualize, organize, and recall information. Cognitive style is also a characteristic of different individuals in terms of feeling, remembering, and thinking, as well as distinguishing, understanding, saving, transforming, and using information. According to Lucas-Stannard (2003), cognitive style is a characteristic that tends to remain in one's personality.

The categories of cognitive style focused on in this study are those proposed by Kagan (1965), namely: reflective and impulsive cognitive style. Reflective and impulsive cognitive styles become the focus because several research results have noted that individuals with these styles are present in more than 50% of the population (Cintamulya, 2014b, 2016). A person who has a reflective cognitive style is very careful before responding to something and examines all alternatives. Thus, time is needed to respond, but the errors made are small whereas someone who has an impulsive alternative style assesses alternatives spontaneously and quickly to select something. They use a short time in responding, but they tend to make more mistakes because they do not examine all alternatives (Rahman, 2008). According to Teng (2000), ideally, the way lecturers/teachers teach must beby the way how students learn. This study focuses on cognitive styles that are distinguished based on the speed of time in responding to stimuli, which, as noted above, distinguish the reflective and impulsive cognitive styles.

The critical thinking skills development of students of the biology education class in 2013 was assessed, based on their learning process in acquiring conservation and environmental knowledge. Conservation and environmental knowledge here is the study of environmental issues, particularly the issue and management of pollution, damage to the environment, natural resources, and conservation. The nature of these materials is suitable to train learners to conduct activities such as: finding the problem, analyzing the problem, making hypotheses, collecting data, testing hypotheses, and determining an alternative solution. Learning is carried out by using cooperative learning model-based assignments to develop the skills of critical thinking. Thus, this type of conservation and environmental knowledge was useful for exploratory research focusing on how well students who had either reflective or impulsive cognitive styles used and developed critical thinking skill work during learning processes.