The Enhancement of Students' Critical Thinking Skills in Mathematics through The 5E Learning Cycle with Metacognitive Technique

This study aims to describe the enhancement and achievement of students' critical thinking skills in mathematics (CTSM) as a result of 5E Learning Cycle with Metacognitive Techniques (LCM), Learning Cycle (LC) and Conventional Learning (CL) implementation is measured entirely and based on student's Mathematical Prior Ability (MPA). This research used a quasi-experimental design with pretest-posttest control group. The population of the research is Junior High School students in Indramayu City, West Java Province, Indonesia. The sample is eighth grade students from two school levels classified as high and medium levels, amounted to 173 students. Three classes were randomly selected from each school, one class received LCM, one class received LC, and the other class received CL. The instruments consisted of CTSM tests, MPA test, and observation sheet. The study revealed that in terms of overall, the enhancement and achievement of students' CTSM who received LCM is better than those who received LC and CL. Likewise the achievement of students' CTSM who received LC is better than those who received CL. The enhancement and the achievement of LCM group students' critical thinking skills is 0.62 and 27.30 while the LC group is 0.49 and 22.84, and the CL group is 0.34 and 17.80. There is an interaction effect between learning model and MPA towards enhancement of students' CTSM. However descriptively, there is no interaction effect between learning model and MPA towards achievement of students' CTSM.