Rusly Hidayah, Kusumawati Dwiningsih, Achmad Lutfi, Sukarmin
Fostering creative thinking skills in chemistry education requires learning tools that bridge the gap between abstract concepts and concrete experiences. Chemistry is often perceived as a difficult subject due to its three levels of representation: macroscopic, sub microscopic, and symbolic. Students frequently struggle to connect these levels, leading to rote memorization rather than deep conceptual understanding. Furthermore, current learning materials often lack the integration of hands-on activities necessary to visualize these representations. To address this gap, this study aimed to develop valid, practical, and effective student activity sheets (SAS) integrated with a practical kit to train students' creative thinking skills in acid-base and electrochemistry. The study employed the research and development (R&D) method with the Borg & Gall model, involving 24 undergraduate chemistry education students. Data were collected via expert validation sheets, student response questionnaires, observation sheets, and pretest-post test instruments designed to measure four indicators: fluency, flexibility, originality, and elaboration. The results indicated that the developed materials met the "very valid" criteria, with an average expert score of 95.91. Practicality tests revealed highly positive student responses, with all aspects scoring above 87.5 and 100 implementation rate of learning activities. Effectiveness testing via paired sample t-tests revealed a significant improvement in creative thinking skills (p < 0.05), with a high average N-gain of 0.74. Improvements were observed across all indicators, as the practical kit served as a tangible macroscopic bridge to help students construct sub microscopic understanding. The study concludes that integrating practical kits with an inquiry-based SAS effectively facilitates cognitive development and creativity by helping students connect theoretical knowledge with practical problem solving. Copyright (c) 2026 The Authors. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Chemistry Education Department, Universitas Negeri Surabaya, Indonesia
