The Implementation of Mathematics Comic through Contextual Teaching and Learning to Improve Critical Thinking Ability and Character

Abstract

<p style="text-align: justify;">Students' critical thinking ability requires improvement from schools as an educational institution. Besides, it is important to maximally integrate character education into mathematics learning. One of the attempts was implementing mathematics comic that contains Pancasila values as teaching material through contextual teaching and learning. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the effectiveness of mathematics comic teaching material with Pancasila values in improving students' critical thinking and character. This is a quasi-experimental study that involves non-equivalent control group design. The population was fourth-grade students of elementary schools in Gajahmungkur District, and data were collected using a critical thinking test and questionnaire. The results showed that using mathematics comic teaching material with Pancasila values was (1) effective in improving students' critical thinking ability; (2) effective in developing character, especially discipline and hard work trait. In the beginning, both character traits were categorized as good, and after treatment, there was an increase in the very good category. Therefore, it can be concluded that the use of mathematics comic teaching material with Pancasila values is effective in improving critical thinking ability and character traits.</p>