Prospective Mathematics Teachers’ Critical Thinking Processes in Dealing Truth-Seeking Problem with Contradictory Information

This study aims to describe the critical thinking process of prospective mathematics teacher students in solving problems with contradictory information. This study is qualitative descriptive research. The subjects consisted of 52 sixth-semester students of Tadris Matematika Programme IAIN Kediri. Collected data through tests and interviews. The test consists of one problem with contradictory information. Analysing data is based on four stages of critical thinking. The results showed that 17% of students chose "yes", 73% chose "no", and the rest answered unclearly. Then four subjects were selected to be interviewed based on the answers "yes" and "no". At the clarification stage, they can describe the primary goal of the problem precisely, even though they did not write it down. At the assessment stage, they can provide appropriate reasons or criteria for concluding. Subjects who answered "Yes" can review other possibilities of conditions of the problem, but this did not happen to subjects who answered "No". At the inference stage, the subjects who answered "Yes" had a hypothesis in advance after doing inductive reasoning, then it was concluded deductively through proof. While the subjects who answered "No", were not able to recognize contradictory information and carelessly conclude. At the strategy stage, the subject who answered "yes" took action to generate other possibilities that met the objectives of the problem. While the subjects who answered "no" recalculated the information on the problem.