The Influence of Wordwall-Assisted PBL Model on Students’ Conceptual Comprehension and Critical Thinking

Abstract

Social studies learning in primary schools currently lacks the active involvement of students in the learning process, so they tend to be passive, which has an impact on their academic understanding and development. Many schools still implement one-way learning, so students are not given space to discuss or solve problems independently. This causes critical thinking skills to be underdeveloped, and understanding of concepts is limited to memorization without practical application. This study aims to examine the influence of the Problem Based Learning (PBL) model assisted by Wordwall on the concept comprehension and critical thinking skills of elementary school students. The Wordwall-assisted PBL model is expected to be a solution to both skills. This study uses a quantitative method with an experimental approach using a quasi-experimental design of nonequivalent groups pretest-posttest. The research sample was taken from two classes at SDN 1 Ciptomulyo, Malang City, which had an average score of almost the same. The research instrument is in the form of written tests (pretest and posttest) that have been tested for validity and reliability. Data were analyzed using normality, homogeneity, and independent-sample t-test hypothesis tests. The results of the t-test on concept comprehension showed a significance value (sig. 2-tailed) of (0.001 < 0.05), while critical thinking showed a significance value (sig. 2-tailed) of (0.001 < 0.05), which indicated a significant increase. Thus, it can be concluded that the Wordwall-assisted PBL model has an effect on students' understanding of concepts and critical thinking skills in class V science material at SDN 1 Ciptomulyo.