The Empowerment of Critical Thinking Skills and Social Attitudes

The empowerment of critical thinking skills and social attitudes in higher education are indispensable. The aim of this research was to uncover the effect of the empowerment efforts on the critical thinking skills and social attitudes of multiethnic biology students in higher education through the implementation of JiRQA learning strategy. This research was a quasi experimental of 2x3 factorial design implemented on the multiethnic biology students of STKIP Persada Khatulistiwa Sintang. The total sample was 125 students consisting of ethnics of Dayak, Malay and Javanese. The samples were taken by using simple random sampling technique. The data of the critical thinking skills were obtained from essay test and social attitudes were obtained from SSAQ. The data were analyzed by using analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) at the 5% significance level (p<0.05). The results of the analysis showed that the JiRQA learning strategy was more potential in empowering critical thinking skills and social attitudes of multiethnic students.