GENDER DIFFERENCES IN STUDENTS’ CRITICAL THINKING IN ARGUMENTATIVE WRITING

Critical thinking is an essential skill in the 21st century. This study aimed to measure the differences between male and female students in critical thinking through argumentative writing. In this study, the researcher synthesized the instrument score based on the theories of Facione (2015) and Toulmin et al. (2002). Then, this study used two raters to score the students’ argumentative essays. This study's design employed an ex post facto approach with a quantitative descriptive method, involving 30 student essays. However, the study employed the quota sampling technique, which consisted of 15 essays written by male students and 15 essays written by female students. The results and findings in this study showed a high level of agreement between two raters in scoring six indicators of critical thinking in the inter-rater reliability test. The differences between male and female students in descriptive statistics revealed that male students outperformed female students in four indicators: interpretation, analysis, inference, and self-regulation. However, female students outperformed male students in two indicators: explanation and evaluation. The researcher used the non-parametric Mann-Whitney test in SPSS to analyze the results from the student scores. Then, the results showed that there was no significant difference between male and female students in critical thinking.