Abstract

Critical thinking skills are the thinking skills that students need to be independent and successful people in the future. The thinking skills are not inherited but it can be obtained through guided practice. This research aimed at comparing the critical thinking skills of students having different academic ability through PQ4R, TPS, and PQ4R-TPS learning strategies. The results of the analysis show that PQ4R - TPS learning strategy is significantly more potential to improve students' critical thinking skills than the other learning strategies. Related to the academic ability, upper academic ability students have higher critical thinking skills than the lower-academic ability students. In addition, the PQ4R-TPS strategy is able to empower the lower academic ability students to achieve the same potential as the upper academic ability students in PQ4R and TPS strategy. This information is valuable for teachers in implementing appropriate learning strategies to improve students' critical thinking skills to be independent learners.