The Effects of Contextual Teaching and Learning (CTL) Model and Initial Abilities of Students Critical Thinking Skills in Class VII Natural Science Subject MTsN 2 Kerinci

The observation results show that students' critical thinking skills are still low. This is due to low learning activity, lack of teacher innovation, teachers do not pay attention to initial abilities and conventional learning. Efforts that can be made to overcome this problem are by using the Contextual Teaching and Learning (CTL) learning model. The purpose of this study was to see the effect of the CTL model and initial abilities on students' critical thinking skills in science learning. This research is a quasi-experimental research. The research population was students of class VII MTsN 2 Kerinci. The sample was taken by purposive sampling, so class VIId was the control class and class VIIc was the experimental class. Data analysis on hypothesis testing was carried out using two-way ANOVA. The research results obtained were (1) The average value of critical thinking skills in the experimental class was 78.02 with high criteria while the control class was 67.60 with moderate criteria. (2) The value of students' critical thinking skills with high initial abilities in the experimental class was 83.96 with very high criteria while the control class was 72.12 with high criteria. (3) The value of critical thinking skills of students with low initial abilities in the experimental class was 72.08 with high criteria while the control class was 62.08 with low criteria. (4) There is no interaction between the CTL learning model and students' initial abilities in influencing students' critical thinking skills.