Effectiveness of Application of Tissue Culture Textbook Based on Research on the Critical Thinking Skills of Biology Students at Universitas Negeri Medan

The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of the application of
research-based tissue culture textbooks based on the critical thinking skills of students at
Universitas Negeri Medan. This type of research was a quasi-experimental study using a pretest and post-test control group design. The population of this study were all students of the
Department of Biology class of 2015. The research sample consisted of two randomly selected
classes. In the experimental class, the learning used a research-based tissue culture textbook
and the control class used conventional textbooks. The results showed that the research-based
tissue culture textbook that had been developed was effective based on critical thinking skills
(Z = 1.301 and P = 0.000). The improvement of students' critical thinking skills (N-Gain score)
was 0.47 in the moderate improvement category. Therefore, it can be concluded that the
research-based tissue culture textbooks were developed effectively based on students' critical
thinking skills.