The Effectiveness of Problem-Based Learning Materials In Improving Students‘ Mathematical Critical Thinking Skills : A Study In Calculus Course

Critical thinking is an important skill to acquire, particularly for students at higher education. This study aims to investigate the effects of problem-based learning materials used in the topic of width of surface area and round volume on students‘ mathematical critical thinking skill. This quasi-experimental study uses one-group pretest-posttest design. Involving all students in semester two of the Mathematics study program, faculty of education, at a local university in Riau province of Indonesia as population, the study selects 52 students as samples. The instruments used in the study are test sheets on mathematical critical thinking skills, using one sample t-test statistical measurement. Findings of the study show that based on different academic competence levels (high, medium, and low) it is found that the use of problem-based learning materials in width of surface area and round volume can improve students‘ mathematical critical thinking skills. However, the improvement is not really significant that teachers need to find more innovative ways to increase this thinking skill. This study tries out a specifically-designed learning material to help students learn width of surface area and round volume topic. Since the designed learning materials are problem- based, findings show that they are able to improve students‘ mathematical critical thinking skills. Considering the scarcity of problem-based learning materials or text-books in calculus which focus on the development of students‘ mathematical critical thinking skills, this learning material can be developed into a comprehensive calculus text-books with this new focus