Analysis of undergraduate students’ misconception on salt hydrolysis with different thinking skill ability using four tier diagnostic test

Misconceptions are still found in various circles, including students at the University. The age of undergraduate students should have the ability to think scientifically at the level of formal thinking so that they can think abstractly and rarely experience misconception. This study aims to analyze the misconceptions of salt hydrolysis that occur in students and compare the misconceptions that occur in students at the every level of scientific thinking from the lower level of thinking (concrete) to the higher level of thinking (upper formal). The method used is descriptive. The research used 68 students in the second year at the Chemistry Department of Malang State University. The instrument used to detect misconceptions is the four tier diagnostic test. The instrument used to measure scientific thinking ability is the classroom test of scientific reasoning (CSTR) instrument. The results obtained are that there are misconceptions of 17.65% at the upper formal thinking level, 32.35% at the low formal thinking level, and 50.00% at the concrete level. These results indicate that the potential for misconceptions occurs at a lower level of thinking more than the potential for misconceptions at a higher level of thinking.