Development of Concept Understanding and Problem Solving Ability of Chemistry Education Students Through Metacognitive Skills-Based Learning

This study aims to develop an understanding of chemical concepts and problem solving ability of Chemistry Education students through the application of metacognitive skills-based learning (MSBL) model. This study used research and development design, Activities were performed in this study. Firs, creating a learning device from MSBL model that has been declared valid, such as: class lectures, student activity sheets, and instruments test of understanding the concepts and problem solving ability. Second, implementing learning in the classroom using a device developed on the basic chemistry courses with a total sample of 65 student (two classes). Learning with teaching materials Stoichiometry and Chemical Equilibrium. Third, measuring the development of conceptual understanding and problem solving skills by giving a test to students before and after learning and analysing using the average value of the N-gain. The measurement for problem solving in terms of the ability the four indicators, such as; understanding the problem, planning the problem solving, implementing plans, and evaluating the results. The results of the study show that: 1) from 20 concepts of the examination, there are 11 concepts have high category, 9 concepts are in fairly high category, and none of the concepts are in the low category. 2) Student understanding concept development from Stoichiometric learning to Chemical Equilibrium. About 4 (31%) of stoichiometric concepts are in the average N-Gain less than 0.5, but after learning Chemical Equilibrium, the average N-Gain is more than 0.5. 3) the ability of students in the first class is in as enough category due to the all of problem solving skill indicators, while in the second class of the Stoichiometry and Chemical Equilibrium studies, both of them have three and two problem solving skill indicators reach the high category. 4) The abilities of students in understanding the problem, planning, doing the problem solving and evaluating the result have developed before conducting the Chemical Equilibrium study rather than before conducting the Stoichiometry. 5) The ability of students to evaluate the result has been developed from the first class to the second class for about 13,3%, although the development is still included as enough categorized. The results shows that students ability in understanding concept and solving problem increase from time to time after applying an instruction based on metacognitive skill.