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Exploring Prospective Teachers' Critical Thinking Process in Solving an Ill-Structured Problem
Last modified: 2021-11-26
Abstract
This study explored the features of prospective teachers' critical thinking process skills in the process of solving an ill-structured problem in a private university mathematics classroom in Makassar, Indonesia. The participants solved the ill-structured problem by following the phases of analyze, browse, create, decision-making, and evaluate. Thirty prospective teachers were selected to complete the mathematical ability test. The students were classified into high and low-ability groups. The group of high-ability prospective teachers were interviewed based on the results of solving the Ill-Structured Problem. The results, include, analyze: understanding and redefining the problem by connecting and presenting known information on the problem via image representation. Browse: identifying the mathematical content needed to solve the problem. Create: formulating solutions that meet many conditions and showing alternative solutions to problems in written and oral form. Decision-making: finding the relationship between the solutions contained in a given problem. Lastly, evaluate: identifying a problem-solving idea as a follow-up plan when faced with a relatively similar problem and completing a written solution. This finding study suggested that it can be employed to help detect the features of prospective teachers' thinking process to solve ill-structured problems in mathematics education and for future research.
Keywords
ill-structured problems; mathematics education; prospective teachers’; critical thinking