Evaluating the effectiveness of problem-based learning in enhancing students' higher order thinking skills

In today's twenty-first century classroom, students have to acquire high level of competencies in such a way that they become innovative and creative to solve their problems. Only appropriate learning models can facilitate students to achieve their high level of thinking skills. In this present study, we report the effectivity of problem-based learning to give experiences for students to think innovatively and creatively. For a more comprehensive exploration, we also performed a qualitative analysis by means of interviews with the students. The problem-based learning was implemented to 30 students in a junior high school in Malang, Indonesia, when they learned human excretory system. Our interviews reveal that the students feel easier in analyzing and solving the related problems. These are in line with the quantitative data that there is a significant improvement of students tests with N-gain of 0.65. In addition, the d-effect size of the problem-based learning to higher order thinking skills is 3.57. This is notable that both N-gain and d-effect size have the same high criteria, which in turn leads to a conclusion that problem-based learning is effective to boost students' higher order thinking skills