Improving Students’ Critical Mathematical Thinking Skills Through SAVI Approach on Number Theory Lectures At Mathematics Education Department of Malikussaleh University

Abstract

The research aimed to see whether SAVI learning approach is better than a normal class in improving students’ critical mathematical thinking skills due to number theory lectures of mathematics. This research used a quantitative research approach with experimental method in the form of quasi-experiment. The population of this research was all the fourth semester of mathematics department students of Malikussaleh University. The sampling used was a purposive sampling that consisted of students in class A1 and A2. The research design used a non –equivalent control group design. The instrument used in this research was a set of questionnaire of critical thinking that had been validated by several validators. Then, the analysis of the improvement score of students’ critical mathematical skills used a normalized gain data which shows the improvement of students’ score classification compared to the ideal maximum score. However, the n-gain score data of students’ critical mathematical skills of control class was not normally distributed. so a non-parametric test was conducted, namely the Mann Whitney U Test. Form Test results, the Asymp. Sig. (1-tailed) value was obtined around 0.008 < α = 0,05. This shows that H₀ is rejected.Hence, it means that the improvement of students’ critical mathematical skills of experimental class is significantly better than a control class. Thus, it is also proven by the hypothesis that applying SAVI approach in learning is better than a normal class without any treatment in improving students’ critical mathematical thinking skills.