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Development of instrument for assessing students’ critical and creative

thinking ability
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ICE-STEM IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Journal of Physics: Conf. Series 948 (2018)
1234567890 ‘’“”012054 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/948/1/012054

Development of instrument for assessing students’ critical and

creative thinking ability

R Herpiana1,a and U Rosidin1

1
Physics Education of Graduate Program, Lampung University, Jl. Sumantri
Brojonegoro No. 01, Lampung, Indonesia.

a
E-mail: [email protected]

Abstract. The purpose of this study was to develop instruments to measure critical thinking
ability and creative students in the topics of physics simple harmonic motion. The research
method used was research development with application of procedures including research and
data collection, planning, and initial product development. The participants of the study were
thirty-four tenth grade students and five physics teachers of physics who were selected randomly
from schools in the province of Lampung. The data collected by using test and analyzed in
quantitative descriptive. Initial data showed that students’ critical and creative thinking ability
were still low and instruments to assess students’ critical thinking skills and creative students
was not yet available. Most of assessment conducted focused on memorization. Thus, the
researchers developed a draft of instrument in the form of the test description based on criteria
that encouraged students’ activity in understanding the concepts, strategies and decision/solution
in dealing with problems. The development of the instrument was conducted considering real-
world phenomena in the form of pictures and stories, description of the situation, and verbal
presentation.

1. Introduction
The primary purpose of education is to improve and develop students’ ability. Various factors might
contribute to this purpose, one of which is the ability of teachers to perform and utilize assessment,
process evaluation, and learning outcomes [1]. Such ability is necessary to understand the application
of intended learning objectives that have been set in the curriculum. In addition, the ability lead to
improve the learning process performed by the teacher so that learners can understand and apply what
they already know. To do that, learners should work to solve a problem, discover by themselves, and try
to implement their ideas. In this case, critical and creative thinking ability play important role in reaching
the educational goals successfully.
Critical and creative thinking ability is important abilities for the learners to solve the problems
encountered [4]. Thus, these abilities are important for all students, especially high school students.
However, based on PISA result reported by the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and
Development (OECD), Indonesia ranks 69th out of 76 countries [12]. The result indicates that the
average of Indonesian students still have problems in terms of the three cognitive aspects, namely
knowing, applying, reasoning
According Ministry of National Education and Culture, assessment of learning outcomes performed
by educators is the process of collecting information/data about learners’ learning achievement in

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ICE-STEM IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Journal of Physics: Conf. Series 948 (2018)
1234567890 ‘’“”012054 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/948/1/012054

various aspects such as attitude, knowledge, and skill in a planned and systematic ways to monitor the
process and learning progress and to improve learning outcomes through assignment and evaluation of
learning outcomes [13]. Based on these opinions, it could be concluded that the assessment can provide
stimulation to students to develop students' critical and creative thinking skills.
Problems that occur in one of schools in Lampung Province are cognitive assessment instruments
used in the form of questions that tend to focus on memorization. Meanwhile problems that encourage
students’ critical thinking skills and creative learners are not applied. Therefore, students' thinking
ability is still low. In addition, it has been exaggerated by teachers’ lack of ability to design its instrument
designed specifically to improve students' critical and creative thinking skills. Thus, the teachers are in
need of guidance to develop the instruments.
The test instrument developed was a test instrument description. The developed test items used
image, graphic, and tables which led students to reach taxonomy of educational goals and involve
higher-level cognitive processes [11]. The purpose of this study is to develop the design of physics
instrument on simple harmonic motion material to measure students' critical and creative thinking
ability.

1.1. Assessment Instruments

Assessment is the process of collecting and processing information. In education, assessment means the
process of collecting and processing information to determine achievement of students’ learning
outcomes. To do this, teachers need instruments in the form of questions to assess cognitive, affective,
and psychomotor aspects. One way to understand characteristics and quality of learning outcomes are
through assessment. Therefore, teachers can understand exactly what students have achieved.
Assessment is the process of collecting, interpreting and using evidence to make decisions about student
achievement in education [7]. Assessment, in general, can be used to determine the level of achievement
of learning outcomes known as the assessment of learning (AoL), and to improve the learning process
known as the formative assessment or assessment for learning (AfL) [17]
Assessment of learning is an assessment used to find out what students know, to indicate whether it
has met the standards, and to make comparison among students [5]. Assessments is designed to inform
teachers to modify their learning activities, differentiate, and understand how students approach
learning. In this study, to develop students' critical and creative thinking skills, an assessment of learning
is needed that can improve learning in the classroom [6]. Teachers should use assessment to plan lessons,
identify student needs in learning and re-teach materials which are not understood by students.

1.2. Critical and Thinking

Critical thinking is a cognitive activity related to the use of mind [4]. Based on Bloom's cognitive
dimensions, critical thinking skills occupy the dimensions of analysis (C4), synthesis (C5), and
evaluation (C6). It appears that these dimensions are derived from Bloom's old taxonomic system. If
matched with Bloom's Bloomfield taxonomy revised by Anderson and Krathwohl [2], then critical
thinking skills occupy parts of analysis (C4), and evaluation (C5), because, in the revised version, the
synthesis dimension is integrated into the analytical dimension. While creative thinking is a mental
activity that fosters original ideas and new understandings. Creative thinking is a habit of the mind
trained by paying attention to intuition, animating the imagination, revealing new possibilities, creating
stunning perspectives, and generating unexpected ideas [6]. Creative thinking is a mental activity that
produces something new that results from development.

2. Methodology
The selected research and development model was developed by the Borg and Gall model which
consisted of ten development steps: (1) collecting research and information; (2) planning; (3) developing
draft; (4) implementing field trials; (5) revising trial results; (6) re-implementing field trials; (7) results
of refined products; (8) field implementation test; (9) refining the final product; and (10) dissemination
and implementation [3]. This article only reports three steps: research development from research and

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IOP Conf. Series: Journal of Physics: Conf. Series 948 (2018)
1234567890 ‘’“”012054 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/948/1/012054

information gathering, planning, and early product development. The research steps are presented in
Figure 1 below.

Needs Analysis
Research and information
collection The study of librarianship

Learn the basic competence

2. Planning
Arrange instrument indicator

Instrument purpose
3. Development of previous
product Instrument form arrangement

Figure 1. Steps of Development

Research development in this article is

2.1. Research and information gathering

This research and gathering of information is the first step in this research to map the problems that is
studied and to bring up the idea of the product to be developed. Form of research and data collection in
the form of field needs analysis and literature review. Necessary analysis were performed by providing
needs analysis to 34 high school students of class X and five physics teachers who were selected
randomly from schools in Lampung Province. The literature review conducted by reviewing several
books and research results are relevant to the development of the research.

2.2. Planning
At the planning stage, basic physics competence analysis was conducted such as determining some basic
competencies whose phenomenon were found by students easily. Subsequent processes was to develop
indicators of assessment instruments adapted to indicators of critical and creative thinking skills. The
next steps were to create natural phenomena in the form of pictures and stories, presentation of the
problem (description of the situation), and presentation of statements and experimental table data that
could be presented in accordance with the basic competence sequence.

2.3. Early product development

The early product development stage determine the purpose of the assessment instrument is to train
students' critical and creative thinking skills. The parts planned in the planning phase are designed in
such a way that they became design products at this stage. The test instrument should contain some good
test instrument parameters. The assessment instrument to be developed was used to help students to
practice their critical and creative thinking skills, the following is the assessment instrument design can
be seen in the following figure:

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ICE-STEM IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Journal of Physics: Conf. Series 948 (2018)
1234567890 ‘’“”012054 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/948/1/012054

LOTS (Lower Order

Thinking Skill)

SI, KI, KD, Assesment

Indicator standard

Assesment standard
Evaluation

Enrichment, Learning objectives

Feedback Instrument (Learning
(feedback) Assessment for Outcome)
learning

Cognitive

Critical thinking and

creativity ability

Figure 2. Assessment Instrument Design

3. Results and Discussion

The stages done in this research are that the research and information gathering stage are based on
relevant theoretical studies. The information obtained is the need to develop a test instrument used to
measure students' critical and creative thinking based on preliminary study conducted in one of the high
schools in Lampung. According to preliminary study results, it was found that cognitive assessment
instruments used to train students' critical and creative thinking skills have not been widely available.
Most questions tend to measure aspects of memory or memorization that cannot be used to train students'
thinking skills even higher. Moreover, in solving the problems of simple harmonic motion that requires
reasoning and analysis in solving it, so need to develop assessment instruments to measure the ability
of critical and creative thinking. So in the next stage, the researcher attempts to develop the instruments
that will be developed, such as the question of critical and creative thinking based on indicators of the
thinking stage. The type of test is a subjective test in the form of a description test.
The result of the initial product development is the design of the critical and creative thinking criteria
of high school students on simple Harmonic Motion materials. The specific purpose of instrument design
is that students can:
a. investigate the concept of harmonic vibration on a simple pendulum swing;
b. determining the restoring force on a simple swing;
c. analyze the relationship of style and vibration in everyday life.
The developed instrument is in the form of a description test. The problem developed test adapted to
indicators Basic Competence Motion Harmonist Simplified and Indicator Critical thinking and creative
thinking. The indicators of critical thinking are: (a) Interpreting, (b) Analyzing, (c) Evaluating and (d)
Inferring [4]. The general indicators used in the critical thinking are ability to understand either known
or well-asked questions, to identify the relationships between the statements, questions and concepts
provided in the questions, and to provide right explanation using right strategy in solving the problem,
to complete and correct and students can make the right conclusions.
The test instrument for measuring critical thinking skills is a description test. It contains questions
that lead to certain indicators of critical thinking ability. While some creative thinking skills are: (a)
Fluency, (b) Flexibility (Dexterity), (c) Originality and (d) Elaboration [6]. Assessment instruments are

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ICE-STEM IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Journal of Physics: Conf. Series 948 (2018)
1234567890 ‘’“”012054 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/948/1/012054

based on creative thinking skills, test instruments that are created to make students spark a lot of ideas,
answers, problem-solving, able to generate varied answers, think something that never thought of others
and develop an idea and detailing of an object making it more interesting [15].
The plan for the appraisal of assessment instruments was carried out with the first three meetings of
prior learning process in order to develop students' critical and creative thinking skills. A final meeting
was conducted to examine the problem as a whole with the objective of knowing the effectiveness of
the developed test instrument whether effective in measuring ability think critically and creatively as an
assessment of learning students [10]. The first meeting discussed the topic of the concept of harmonic
vibration in the pendulum swing, in this meeting the process of teaching and learning with the aim that
students can understand the topic discussed to work on the problem of critical thinking and creative
skills that have been assembled as an assessment for learning.
After the learning was performed, the students were given some description questions to assess their
thinking ability. The second and third meetings were still going through the same process as the first
meeting, only the topics discussed was different. The second meeting discussed the restoring style and
the third meeting discussed the relationship of style and vibration in everyday life. From these three
meetings, the students' value in working on the critical thinking and creative thinking problem was
given.
Based on the analysis, it could be said that the test instrument of critical and creative thinking ability
was designed to build and train students' critical and creative thinking skills based on the indicators of
problem made. The following are examples of problems that could improve students' critical and
creative thinking skills in simple harmonic motion materials.

Figure 3. Picture on the left shows a hummingbird flapping its

wings while sucking on nectar. Hummingbirds have a body mass
of about two grams. This bird flaps its wing 80 times every second.
Why does the hummingbird flap its wings? What do you think
about it?

Students answered the question in various responses. To measure students' ability to answer the
question, it considered analysis of natural phenomena created based on drawings and stories that led
students to take decisions in solving the problem.
The results of research conducted by Treagust showed that learning using assessment sheet as an
assessment for learning could improve students' ability in science learning. The use of test instruments
as an assessment for learning is necessary to develop students' thinking skills [16]. This also agrees with
research by Klenowski. The results obtained showed that assessment for learning, a process of
identifying development of learning, was able to develop students’ thinking ability [8]. Thus, the use of
an assessment instrument of critical and creative thinking skills as an assessment for learning is able to
develop students' thinking ability.
The use of critical thinking and creative thinking test instruments is one of the alternatives for
teachers to determine the level of critical and creative thinking skills of students [14]. By working on
the problem of critical thinking and creative students can provide answers in accordance with the ability
to think so that teachers know how well the level of thinking ability of students. This, of course, can
help teachers to better develop critical and creative thinking test instruments on other topics so that
students can develop their thinking ability to be more optimal. The test instrument of critical and creative

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ICE-STEM IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Journal of Physics: Conf. Series 948 (2018)
1234567890 ‘’“”012054 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/948/1/012054

thinking ability to be developed is considered effective in measuring students' critical and creative
thinking ability in accordance with the level of ability they have.

4. Conclusion
Based on the results of research on the literature and analysis, it showed that the assessment instrument
is still a rote or memory assessment instrument. Instrument assessment required by students can measure
the ability of critical and creative thinking in the form of a description test with the criteria that can
stimulate student activity in understanding the concepts, implementing strategies and tactics in solving
problems. Development of instrument design is through natural phenomena in form of pictures and
stories, presentation of problems (description of situations), presentation of statements and experimental
table data so as to strengthen students' conceptual understanding and make correct decisions/solutions
in solving problems.

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