Analisis Kemampuan Berpikir Kritis Mahasiswa dalam Menulis Pendahuluan Tugas Akhir di Era Digital

Abstract

Students’ critical thinking skills are often reflected in the way they construct the introduction of their final projects, particularly when formulating research problems and relating them to previous studies. Some final project introductions still present the background descriptively without demonstrating strong argumentative relationships. This article analyzes students’ critical thinking skills through the introduction sections of several final projects. The analysis focuses on six aspects: problem identification, the use and evaluation of sources, analysis of previous studies, identification of the research gap, argument construction, and information synthesis to direct the research. This study employs a qualitative approach using content analysis. The data consist of introduction sections from several students’ final projects selected as the sources for analysis. Each document is analyzed based on six critical thinking indicators to identify patterns in students’ ability to construct a research introduction. The analysis indicates that students are relatively capable of identifying problems and using supporting sources, but they still encounter difficulties in analyzing previous studies, formulating the research gap, and synthesizing information. These findings indicate that critical thinking skills in academic writing are not yet evenly developed and require further improvement, particularly in analytical skills and the construction of academic arguments.