The development and validation of critical thinking skills test on photoelectric effect for pre-service physics teachers

Critical thinking (CT) is one aspect of higher-order thinking skills that is emphasized in the 21st century learning. CT skills are important to be enhanced and assessed through learning process. Therefore, it is necessary to develop an appropriate test instrument for measuring pre-service physics teachers' CT skills. Unfortunately, there have not been much writing which informs the results of CT test development on physics domain, especially for advanced physics concepts. This study develops CT test in photoelectric effect called CTPE test. The aspects of CT used in CTPE test are reasoning, hypothesis testing, argument analysis, likelihood and certainty analysis, and problem-solving and decision making. Each aspect is represented using two specific domains of CT on photoelectric effect concept. The validity of CTPE test is obtained through expert review (N=3). Furthermore, the CTPE test is tested on the students (N=32) to determine the reliability of the test instrument. The results of data analysis show that reliability coefficient is 0.71, this means that CTPE test have a high degree of reliability. It can be concluded that CTPE test can be used to measure students' CT skills on the concept of photoelectric effect.