The Influence of Fisher and Frey's Direct Instruction on Students’ Critical Thinking Skills in Writing Performance of Grade VIII Students at SMP Negeri 4 Pakem
Abstract
Critical Thinking (referred to as CT henceforth) is one of the learning outcomes included in the 4Cs 21st-century skills promoted in education, especially in Indonesia's educational context. This study examined the effectiveness of Fisher and Frey's direct instruction on students' writing and critical thinking, with a focus on junior high school students. This study employed a quantitative approach using a quasi-experimental research design. Two classes participated, consisting of 28 students from the control group and 29 students from the experimental group. The instruments were the writing tests and rubrics for both writing and critical thinking. Two analyses were conducted to address the research questions: a descriptive analysis to explore the levels of skills and inferential statistics to test hypotheses. Hypothesis testing was performed using paired and independent sample T-Tests, as well as the Wilcoxon signed-rank test. The findings reveal that Fisher and Frey's direct instruction can enhance students' writing skills. Nevertheless, no significant difference occurs between students who received Fisher and Frey's direct instruction and those who did not. Their ability to express ideas and arguments in their writings, mainly through connectors that combine ideas, is one of the improved aspects, as well as a rise in the organisation of complex sentence structures and paragraphs. On the other hand, the details suggest that Fisher and Frey's direct instruction can strengthen students in critical writing. The ability to reason is one of the improved aspects found in students' paragraphs, which are highlighted with the conjunction "because" to express the question "why".
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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18415/ijmmu.v13i4.7432
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