Critical Thinking of Prospective Mathematics Teachers: What Are the Errors in Argumentation?

Critical thinking is one of the important aspects and must be owned by prospective
teachers. But the fact is that many prospective teachers do not think critically,
especially in the argumentation aspect. This study aims to find out the mistakes of
prospective teachers in making arguments after solving the given problem. The
research design used is qualitative with an exploratory descriptive approach. The
number of participants is 80 teacher candidates, then three subjects are taken who have
errors in making arguments. The instruments used are tests and interviews. The data
that has been collected is analyzed using data reduction, data presentation, and
concluding. The results of this study state that there are two mistakes teacher
candidates make in arguing, namely errors in conveying arguments and the ideas used
are illogical. Suggestions for further research are that a question and answer session is
needed to train prospective teachers' arguments and develop their critical thinking
skills.