Penguatan Budaya Bertanya dan Berpikir Kritis Santri Madrasah Aliyah Darunnajah Trenggalek melalui Pelatihan dan Diskusi Kelompok

Abstract

This community service program aimed to strengthen a culture of questioning and critical thinking among students of Madrasah Aliyah Darunnajah Trenggalek through a Critical Thinking training session and a case-study group discussion. The activity was conducted on 29 May 2026, involving 35 students of Grade X and XI. Data were collected through an online survey measuring students' perception of how the pesantren environment supports critical and creative thinking (10 statements), a self-ranking of personal traits (7 traits, 1-7 scale), and open-ended responses on how the pesantren environment affects their thinking, analyzed descriptively. Results show that perceived environmental support for critical thinking is very high, all students (100%) agreed or strongly agreed that Islamic values such as tafakkur and ijtihad motivate them to think critically and creatively, and that halaqah activities train their thinking ability. However, when asked to rank their own personal traits, the disposition of questioning to understand more deeply was placed among the top three traits by only 25.7% of students (mean ranking 5.06 out of 7), lower than several other traits. These findings indicate a gap between high perceived environmental support and a questioning disposition that has not yet become a salient part of students' self-identity, suggesting that explicit training and structured methods such as discussion and debate remain necessary to sustainably cultivate critical thinking habits.