Potential of Reflective Thinking Skills as a Bridge for Students? Prior-Knowledge and Chemistry Experiments Skills

The research on how to the prior knowledge of those students will enter the chemistry experiment laboratory activity, mainly in the synthesis of inorganic compounds was conducted using mixed methods design. The subjects were the 4th semester of chemistry students of chemistry pre-service teachers of 2 universities in Indonesia. This study showed that 69 % of students know about the concept, but only 17, 5 % of students who understand the interrelation of the concept with the experiment properly, 78 % of students remained at levels 1 and 2 in terms of the ability to think reflectively. This study shows that there is a considerable gap between the students prior-knowledge with in-depth understanding of experiments. Low reflective thinking skills can be one caused. Appropriate experimental design should be designed so as to be able to overcome this gap, and becoming a bridge as a reflective thinking tool.