The Analysis of the Students’ Creative Thinking Skills in Biology
Learning
Apratiwi Sukmawati, Sajidan, Harlita
Science Education, Biology Education Program of Sebelas Maret University, Surakarta, Indonesia
Keywords: Biology, Creative Thinking Skills.
Abstract: Creative thinking skills are the high-level thinking skills that have an important role and must be owned by
every student to face challenges in the 21st century. This study aimed to determine the students' creative
thinking skills in the Biology subject. This research applied a descriptive method. The instrument used was a
creative thinking test instrument on the biological material that has been integrated with the aspects of creative
thinking. The research subjects were 159 twelfth-grade high school students in Surakarta. The results showed
that the students' creative thinking skills in the low category were 32.98%. The aspects of creative thinking
skills can be detailed as 33.22% in the fluency aspect, 40.16% in the flexibility, 11.61% in the originality, and
49.94% in the elaboration.
1 INTRODUCTION
In the 21st century, education is increasingly
important to ensure students have the skills to learn
and innovate, use technology skills, be able to sort out
the truth of information received, and be able to
survive using the skills they possess. Education is one
of the most important factors in sustainable
development. 21st century education is student-
centred, interactive and web-based so that the skills
are needed to support learning (Trilling and Fadel,
2009).
The skills needed in the 21st century include
critical thinking, problem solving, the ability to
collaborate, communicate, creative, scientific
literacy, and having an integrated global awareness in
learning (Kay, 2009). Creative thinking is one of the
skills needed in the 21st century. Creative and
effective thinking skills must be possessed by the
students as the independent self-development
(Asmara, Susantini and Rahayu, 2015). Creative
thinking is a divergent thinking process, namely the
ability to provide alternative answers and see
possibilities for solving a problem based on the
information provided (Guilford, 1967). Biology
learning for the 21st century generation is adjusted to
the needs and demands of the competencies needed
(Maghfiroh, Susilo and Gofur, 2016).
Creativity can be seen in the field of science as an
invention, which can be an effective factor for
developing innovation (Ulger, 2017). Creative
thinking is very important to be developed through
learning science, especially biology, with the aim of
being able to equip students to face challenges and
obstacles in the future. Biology is one of the sciences
learning that requires skills because in the learning
process there is a process of investigation or
discovery and gathering of information. Biology is
one of the materials that can be used to develop
creative thinking skills (Tendrita, Mahanal and
Zubaidah, 2016). The empowerment of creative
thinking should be applied to learning in schools
(Sulistiyono, Mahanal and Saptasari, 2017). Schools
as the formal education institutions are the second
environment after families which have the potential
to grow and develop thinking skills.
The development of students’ creativity is one of
the educational goals set out in the Law of the
Republic of Indonesia No. 12 of 2012 Article 5a
namely the development of the students’ potential to
become people who believe and fear God Almighty,
are noble, healthy, and knowledgeable, and have the
skills and creativity, independence, competence and
culture for the sake of the nation (Departemen
Pendidikan Nasional, 2012) The statement contained
in the Law of the Republic of Indonesia No. 12 of
2012 Article 5a is strengthened by the Minister of
Education and Culture Regulation No. 61 of 2014
132
Sukmawati, A., Sajidan, . and Harlita, .
The Analysis of the Students’ Creative Thinking Skills in Biology Learning.
DOI: 10.5220/0008408901320135
In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Learning Innovation (ICLI 2018), pages 132-135
ISBN: 978-989-758-391-9
Copyright
c
2019 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved
which states that one of the competencies needed by
the students is to have creative skills.
Creative thinking skills possessed by the students
can help in dealing with the problems in learning.
This creative thinking skill can also help them to
utilize information to survive in the competition and
in an uncertain life that is always changing (Sesanti
and Marsitin, 2017). According to (Fatra and Maryati,
2017) someone who has creative skills will be an
effective person in learning, community, work and in
his life. The progress of a nation's development can
be done by preparing future generations with
knowledge and skills. Creative thinking can create a
culture of innovation and change, wherein the
learning process is student-oriented (Forrester, 2008).
The importance of creative thinking skills trained
and owned is seen based on the benefits that have
been described which is not in line with the facts.
Based on the Global Creativity Index (GCI) survey
conducted by Martin Prosperity Institute, Indonesia
ranks 115th out of 139 countries (Florida, Mellander
and Stolarick, 2011). (Prianggono, 2012) found in his
research that the students' creative thinking skills
were zero, which means that they did not have
creative thinking skills. In line with this, (Sari,
Sumiati and Siahaan, 2013) stated that actually this
creative thinking skill is a thinking skill that is often
overlooked in the formal education. Because learning
that takes place does not train divergent thinking, the
students are only able to give one answer when given
a question. As a result, they will experience
difficulties if faced with a problem that demands
creative thinking. Based on this background, there
needs to be an effort to train creative thinking skills.
Therefore, this research was conducted to find out the
creative thinking skills of the students in the Biology
subject in one of the senior high schools in Surakarta.
2 METHOD
The method used in the research was descriptive
method. The instrument used to measure the students'
creative thinking skills was a biological description
test that has been integrated by four aspects of
creative thinking. The creative thinking aspects used
are the aspects of fluency, flexibility, originality, and
elaboration. The sample used in this study included
all the students of class XII Science in one of
Surakarta state senior high schools in the 2016/2017
academic year. The sample consisted of 5 classes
symbolized by A1, A2, A3, A4 and A5. The data were
analysed using descriptive analysis, with the
presentation of data in the form of tables and
percentages. This aims to determine the initial ability
of the students' creative thinking in the Biology
subject.
3 RESULT AND DISCUSSION
Creative thinking skills in biology learning lead to
high-level learning that trains students to become
successful learners especially in biology learning. As
(Chang et al., 2015) said, creative thinking skills are
high-level thinking skills used in problem solving. In
this study, the aspects used refer to Guilford's creative
thinking skills which are expressed in four aspects.
The four aspects are fluency, flexibility, originality,
and elaboration (Guilford, 1967). The eight questions
used were the integrated questions of creative
thinking. The percentage calculation of each aspect of
the profile of creative thinking skills tested in the
Biology subject is presented in Table 1.
Table 1: The percentages of the students’ creative thinking
aspect
Classe
s
Creative thinking aspects (%)
fluenc
y
flexibilit
y
originalit
y
elaboratio
n
A1
37.1
41.13
12.10
59.68
A2
19.35
35.48
12.90
25.00
A3
24.19
38.71
14.52
43.55
A4
50
45.16
5.65
51.61
A5
35.48
40.32
12.90
54.84
Mean
(%)
33.22
40.16
11.61
46.94
Table 2: The category of students levels of creative thinking
aspect (Riduwan, 2010).
Percentages (%)
81-100
61-80
41-60
21-40
0-20
Based on the Table 1, it shows that each aspect of
creative thinking is different. The highest percentage
can be seen in the elaboration aspect by 46.94%. In
the elaboration aspect, the students are required to be
able to enrich, develop, add, elaborate, or break down
the details of the objects of ideas, main ideas or
situations so that they are more interesting. The
percentage of 46.94% is categorized as quite creative.
The average aspect of flexibility is 40.16%. The
flexibility aspect is the ability to solve problems by
generating various thoughts or ideas. On average,
The Analysis of the Students’ Creative Thinking Skills in Biology Learning
133
40.16% is categorized as quite creative. The fluency
aspect is 33.22%. The fluency aspect is an aspect that
measures the students' fluency in answering
questions, measured by the quantity of the answers
within a specified time. (Silver, 1997) stated that the
fluency aspect of problem solving refers to the ability
of the students to get many solutions. This aspect is
categorized as low. The lowest aspect is the
originality aspect by 11.61%. The originality aspect
is expressed by the ability to generate new thoughts
or ideas and develop the existing ideas in their own
language. This aspect is categorized as low. In this
case, the students show that the ability to produce
unique or different ideas is very low when compared
to the other three aspects. Hence, it is necessary to do
training on the originality aspect and the other three
aspects so that the students have good creative
thinking skills.
The aspects of creative thinking skills namely
fluency, flexibility, originality, and elaboration show
a low category by the average of 32.98% respectively,
seen in Table 2. This is known from the observations
that have been made that the students have not been
accustomed to working on the questions that contain
the aspects of creative thinking skills. (Sari, Ikhsan
and Saminan, 2017) asserted that the teachers are not
used to training their students to work on the
divergent questions, which require more than one
answer. They are not well trained so that when faced
with problems that require them to think creatively,
the students find them difficult to do. The creative
thinking process is the combination of the logical and
divergent thinking. Divergent thinking is used to find
ideas in solving problems while logical thinking is
used to verify these ideas into a creative solution
(Siswono and Rosyidi, 2005). The ability to think
creatively is the ability or thinking process to provide
new ideas that can be applied in problem solving. The
ability to think creatively also contributes to the
students' learning outcomes themselves. Therefore, it
is better to develop creativity trained early on for the
students (Subali and Mariyam, 2013).
Creative thinking skills can be empowered with
several activities such as identifying problems,
brainstorming, composing questions, reading
activities, group or individual learning. The existence
of the problems raised by the students will stimulate
their thinking skills by which they will be able to
develop knowledge (Liliawati, 2011). Brainstorming
activities aim to enable students to explore creative
ideas related to the phenomenon presented, so as to
improve their creative thinking skills. The students
who play an active role in the learning activities such
as digging up information and solving problems in
questions that are prepared or proposed can stimulate
their thinking skills.
Questioning activities can stimulate one's
thinking. Questions that stimulate creative thinking
are divergent or open questions (open-ended
questions) (Munandar, 2012). Reading activities can
train the discovery process to develop thoughts or
ideas so that the students who spend a lot of time
reading can improve their creative thinking skills
(Wang, 2012). Creative thinking skills can be
empowered through group or individual learning
approaches (Gomez, 2007).
4 CONCLUSIONS
The results showed that the initial ability of the
students' creative thinking skills in the biology
learning in the originality and fluency aspects was
categorized as low while in the aspects of flexibility
and elaboration were categorized as sufficient. The
percentage of the four aspects shown is 32.98%,
which means that the students' creative thinking skills
are still low. Therefore, more attention and training
are needed to improve the students’ creative thinking
skills.
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