Analysis of scientific argument of vocational high school students on the topic of substance change

Abstract

This study aims to see the ability of scientific argumentation of chemical analysis vocational high school students on the topic of changing the form of substances. This research is a qualitative descriptive study. The instrument used was a four-level multiple choice test with a validity value of 97% and a reliability of 0.83 consisting of 20 items related to the concept of changing the form of a substance. The research subjects were 173 vocational high school students majoring in chemical analysis. The results showed that the proportion of the ability of class X, XI and XII students in providing scientific arguments was 56%, 56% and 52%, respectively. These results are supported by students’ conceptual understanding of topics that change the form of substances, namely students who understand well at 34.77%; misconception error 1 of 16.16%; misconception error 2 was 8.99%; misconception error 3 is 15.84% and those who do not understand the concept are 24.25%. From the results of the study it can be ignored that students have low scientific argumentation skills due to students’ low conceptual understanding of the topic of changing the form of substances.