How Indonesian Primary Teacher Motivate and Trains Critical Thinking Skills during Pandemic?: A Phenomenological Study

: How Indonesian Primary Teacher Motivate and Trains Critical Thinking Skills during Pandemic?: A Phenomenological Study. Objective: This research aims to describe how teachers motivate and train critical thinking skills during the pandemic. Method: This research was a qualitative study with phenomenological type. The data were collected with a phone-call interview. It was then followed up with a WhatsApp-Group discussion of fifteen primary school teachers at a higher level class in Dawe district, Kudus Municipality, Central Java, Indonesia. The interview data were then reduced and presented in the table. Then, they were searched for the sub-themes. The applied analysis was done with Bogdan & Biklen’s stages, consisting of reducing, finding the themes, and connecting the sub-themes. Finding: The interview result analysis resulted in five themes of motivation aspect and three themes dealing with critical thinking skill training. Conclusion: The obtained findings showed that teachers could improve the learners’ learning motivation during the pandemic. However, they could not train the critical thinking skills due to various limitations.


 INTRODUCTION
World Health Organization (WHO) on December 31, 2019, was alert due to a pneumonia case that had not been recognized in Wuhan (Lee, 2020).This pneumonia case is known as ) that spread around the world and infected more than 200 countries in the world (Shen et al., 2020).COVID-19 spread impacts various fields, especially the education field.The implementation of health protocol insists the learning is promoted online (Arlinwibowo et al., 2020).Therefore, online or distant learning is the solution to overcome face-to-face learning (Ahmed, Shehata, & Hassanien, 2020;Hasan & Bao, 2020;Herliandry et al., 2020).Several campuses and schools had applied distant or online courses (Purwanto, et al., 2020).Online learning is facilitated with various computerized tools, smartphones, the Internet, and website (Erarslan & Arslan, 2020).Promoting school online could be done from various social media platforms, such as website, application, and the existing learning management system (Gunawan, Suranti, & Fathoroni, 2020).Various management system platforms could be used by teachers, such as Smart Class, Ruang Guru, Quipper, Google Indonesia, Sekolahmu, Zenius, and Microsoft (Abidah et al., 2020).Online learning also can be done with online communication platforms, such as Zoom, Skype, WhatsApp, Google Classroom, Google Meet, and Youtube (Jhon, Mustadi, & Zubaidah, 2020).Learning at home also requires parents' participations to accompany the learners.Thus, learning activity that is originally promoted at school is moved into home (Hapsari, Sugito, & Fauziah, 2020).
The promoted online learning provides several impacts, such as lack of online teaching experience, lack of preparation (Cicco, 2013;McQuiggan, 2012), and no initial preparation (Bao, 2020).They made psychological pressures on teachers.Lack of facilities owned by teachers in online learning makes them saturated because of no direct interaction with peer teaching and learners (Purwanto et al., 2020).Another problem found was less optimum online teaching-learning activity (Hasan & Bao, 2020) moreover it is difficult to instill skills and attitudes for the learners.The important skill and attitudes to prepare the learners in the 21 st century consist of creativity, critical thinking, communication, and collaboration (Rusdin & Ali, 2019).One of the 21 st -century skill focus is critical thinking skill.Nitko & Brookhart (2013: 187) argued that critical thinking skill development was an applicable skill to show an individual's critical thinking skill behavior.Ennis (1993) defines critical thinking skill as the intellect and reflection to decide what to believe and or what to do.Moreover, critical thinking skills have several keys in understanding and with the curriculum and teaching-learning.Thus, it could be concluded that critical thinking skill provides excellent impacts for learners' life besides becoming the 21 st -century skill.Thus, it is important to be taught.
Learning promoted during the COVID-19 pandemic should follow the instruction of the education and culture ministry by promoting online learning to provide meaningful learning without being burdened to reach all curriculum requirements (Rasmitadila et al., 2020).Online learning has its difficulties to promote teachinglearning.Thus, it is ineffective in encouraging critical thinking moreover to improve learners' learning motivation.Online learning could be done properly when the learners have internal motivation because of teachers' limitations to motivate them.Motivation is the internal power to encourage learners to learn, do the best, and direct them in the learning process to reach excellent results (Ricardo & Meilani, 2017).
Motivation provides a positive impact on learning because it has roles to influence the learning results and to reach the targeted objectives (Rehman & Haider, 2013).
Low learning motivation of learners could impact the learning activities.Learners would lose their social interaction for their learning and growth (Adnan & Anwar, 2020).They might be late to submit or work on their tasks.In several cases, their content understanding would be significant problems (Rasmitadila et al., 2020).One of the most important elements in online learning is motivation.It is in line with Muslih (2020).He found that motivation was a crucial medium in promoting activities, especially during this pandemic.It needs to be improved because it influences learning.It becomes something used to improve communication so it could develop empathy, care, and learning motivation.According to Fadhilah (2021), learners' learning motivation tended to get lower during having schools from home.However, it could be improved by publishing the learners' works.
Several applicable methods could be used to improve learners' learning motivation.Zaheera (2000) did several things to improve learning motivation, such as (a) explaining the teaching objective before providing the materials, (b) using various methods in the learning process, (c) creating a competitive atmosphere, (d) promoting continuous test, (e) providing rewards for achieved learners, and (f) considering the learning environment.Slavin (2018) found several steps to improve learners' learning motivation, such as (a) creating a supportive classroom climate, (b) making learners interested, (c) keeping the curiosity, (d) applying tasks, (e) using various interesting display,(f) assisting learners to choose their choices, (g) having achievement, and (h) final relevance.On the other hand, Yang & Chang (2012) argue to improve motivation, it could be done by providing positive interaction between learners and teachers.
Teachers could encourage critical thinking skills with several things.Choy & Cheah (2009) argue that to encourage critical thinking skill has to be practiced and instilled into daily learning.On the other hand, Snyder & Snyder (2008) provided a critical thinking skill model, such as questioning technique and guiding the learners to think critically to solve problems.Bowell et al (2020) found the argument concept to improve critical thinking skills.It was identifying the discussed objective, constructing the discussed argument, and reconstructing by evaluating and strengthening the argument.Brookfield (2012) found several ways to improve critical thinking skills, such as using notions, studying cases in the realworld, stimulating, demonstrating, and providing rewards.
In this COVID-19 pandemic era, there is a need to improve learners' learning motivation moreover when the learning is done at home without direct control from the teachers.If learners do not have learning motivation, learners will do it as a routine without being entailed by autonomous learning effort at home.Besides that, much information spread in the community, especially about COVID-19, needs to be screened by learners.Thus, it is important to prepare their critical thinking skills.Therefore, the learners will not easily believe any incorrect news and could screen which one is right.Besides that, according to Kivunja (2015), critical thinking skill is a foundation of international needs of success in higher education, university, career, and life outside the educational institution.A survey sponsored by the conference board and another survey done by Kyllonen (2012) found that the 21 st -century skill was considered important.Thus, it could be concluded that critical thinking skill is the most sought skill in the world.
During this pandemic, many problems in online learning make learners anxious (Talidong & Toquero, 2020), such as lack of material understanding, having task deadline, unstable Internet connection, difficulties to work on the tasks, difficulties to buy the Internet balance, technical hindrances, low scores, hindrances join class, and unreadiness to face the next level (Oktawirawan, 2020).They were in line with previous findings of Bahasoan et al (2020).They found a percentage of 46% experiencing network hindrances and balance, a percentage of 37% experiencing network hindrances, a percentage of 18% having balance, and a percentage of 1% having no problems in online learni ng.It proved many hindrances experienced during online learning.The promoted online learning caused not all learners to join the learning because not all of them had internet access.The causes were some of them still used the parents' smartphones and illiterate technological parents so they had difficulties guiding the learners (Dewi, 2020).The cultural differences of learning, from face-to-face learning into online learning, made learners take a longer time to adapt.It indirectly influenced the learning mastery power (Purwanto et al, 2020).Primary school learners have short concentration skills.It makes them easily get bored at home because of no interaction with peers and only spending time with their parents.How primary school teachers motivate and encourage the learners to think critically has to be elaborated so that it could be best practice for other teachers.This research is useful to find out how teachers motivate and encourage critical thinking skills during the pandemic.
It becomes the reason for the research to understand (1) how to encourage learners to think critically during this pandemic, and (2) how teachers motivate learners' learning during this pandemic.Thus, the researcher conducted this mini research to find out how teachers motivate and encourage critical thinking skills for the learners during this pandemic.

 METHOD
This research is qualitative research with phenomenological type, because of the importance of motivation to learn and think critically in the present, especially during pandemic.this study using phenomenology which is seen from the various experiences of participants who have implemented online learning.It was designed to describe the experience by determining the meaning of the participating individuals' experience (Ary et al., 2014).It had the purpose to reduce the indivi duals' experience of a certain phenomenon into descriptions (Creswell, 2007).The revealed phenomenon was how teachers motivated and encouraged learners to think critically.The research was carried out online from October 13 until 30, 2020.The participants consisted of fifteen primary school teachers in Dawe district, Kudus municipality, Central Java Province.They were male and female teachers with bachelor's degrees in primary school education and had promoted online learning.The participants were selected with a purposive sampling technique based on the research objective consideration.
The data were collected by phone via video with deep interview and completed by a Focus Group Discussion (FGD) with 15 teachers of Primary schools in the Dawe subdistrict, sehingga mendapat informasi yang detail.Data collection was carried out by approaching respondents through virtual meeting discussions so that closeness was established and understood the conditions if the informants, so that the data provided by respondents dit not experiences bias.The interview was done individually to reveal the phenomena and the meaning for every individual (Hasbiansyah, 2008).The interview was done online to prevent direct contact to severe the COVID-19 spread.Then, the respondents also agreed with the online interview.The online interview method gets more frequently used in the research field (Glogowska, Young, & Lockyer, 2011).The phone-call interview is the acceptable approach and could be learned properly for qualitative data collection.It also has many benefits, such as broader-geographical coverage.It also could keep the interviewer's safety (Novick, 2008).
The data were collected to find out how teachers motivated and encouraged the learners to think critically during this COVID-19 pandemic.FGD and interviews topics consist of seven Sub-themes: 1) assignment, 2) the learning facilities, 3) the communication style, 4) the reward provision, 5) the understanding about critical thinking, 6) the critical thinking learning ideal, dan 7) the hindrance of applying critical thinking learning.The applied analysis was done with Bogdan & Biklen's stages (1982) in order to know the relationship among sub-themes.The first step analysis included reduction, data analysis from interviews and FGD.Second, the themes are presented in the table.The final step is to connect the subthemes by classifying it into sub-themes.
The interview was done with the participants with their consent without insisting.The shared data were done via interview and used by the researcher for this research purpose.Thus, the identities of the participants were kept in secrecy.Any matters dealing with the shared responses during the interview were kept in secrecy.It will not influence the participants in the future.

 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
COVID-19 pandemic in Indonesia impacted various activities, such as education (Bahasoan et al., 2020).It causes the offline learning activities could not be done as usual so the best solution is the online learning system (Fadlilah, 2021).The promoted learning system has weaknesses and strength points moreover during this condition.Both teachers and learners had not been habituated to learn online.They were grouped into two topics.They were (1) training the critical thinking skills during the pandemic and (2) developing the learners' learning motivation during the pandemic.The results were then reduced and the sub-themes were determined based on the main topic.The sub-themes were connected so each topic could be concluded.The results of the topic are presented in the discussion.

Developing the Learners' Motivation during the Pandemic
Learning motivation played important roles and influenced online or offline learning success (Baber, 2020;Damanik, 2019).It was important because the learners' success depended on th eir motivation and encouragement to learn (Emda, 2018).Learners with high motivation would be a successful in their online learning environment than those with lower motivation (Baber, 2020).Two types of learning motivation were found, such as intrinsic and extrinsic learning motivations.The applied learning activity was difficult to do when it had to trigger learners' intrinsic motivation since it came from the internal side of learners (Prihartanta 2015).However, teachers could trigger extrinsic motivation so it could encourage learners to learn properly (Emda, 2018).The external motivation was very important during the pandemic.Therefore, this research gathered the respondents and asked them to share their statements about (1) assignment, (2) the learning facilities, (3) the communication styles, and (4) the reward provision.The table of the reduced results is shown below. No.

Sub-theme
The correlation among sub-themes 1 The learning activity was done by providing materials, quizzes, and questions-answers between 07.00 until 09.000 in the morning.
Then, the next agenda was providing an assignment.
The learning was done based on the schedule, from 07.00 until 09.00 in the morning, while the task submission was flexible.The duration of giving tasks was only twice until three times a week in the form of project, question sheet, test exercise, interview, making poster, writing, and memorizing.

2
The learning activities were done every day.However, the task submission was based on the facilities owned by the learners. 3 The duration of giving tasks was only twice until three times a week in the form of project, question sheet, test exercise, interview, making poster, writing, and memorizing Moreover, online learning had different nature from offline learning.Thus, it required teachers' and learners' adaptations.First, online and offline learning was different in terms of learning time because the learning time only lasted from 07.00-09.00.The duration of giving tasks was only twice until three times a week in the form of project, question sheet, test exercise, interview, making poster, writing, and memorizing.Motivating learners during this pandemic could be done in various ways, such as motivating them by providing tasks with figures.It was important because tasks with a figure made learners joyful.It was in line with Shokyah (2014).She found that a joyful activity for learners was drawing.
The appropriate tasks or assignments would contribute to an excellent learning environment.It was because an online learning environment provided an additional learning experience for learners to interact, collaborate, make immediate decisions, and take responsibility for individual learning time.Thus, online learning improved the learners' motivations and learning spirits autonomously (Ali, 2020).It is in line with Damanik (2019).He found that the learning environment positively and significantly influenced learning motivation.

Learning Facilities
Learning activity dealt with how teachers taught the learners to keep learning although it was promoted online without face-to-face learning directly.Therefore, the skills to provide appropriate learning facilities based on the learning needs were important.Based on the interview analysis, several obtained sub-themes of learning facilities are explained in Table 2.
Table 1.The table of reduced results of tasks or assignment

Assignment
All respondents mentioned their teaching experience toward the takenlearning time.Every teacher provided learning activities and continued by providing tasks.From the obtained interview analysis results, several sub-themes were found as presented in Table 1. No.

Sub-theme
The correlation among subthemes 1 The teacher created a learning situation by facilitating it with modules, videos, animated PPT, games of quizzes, learning multimedia, worksheets, and textbooks.
The teachers facilitated the learning with various supportive learning instruments and platforms with a home visit and face-toface meeting once a week.The learning activity was based on the agreement.It was supported by activating the learners by giving points, rewards, or posting their tasks.

2
The learning activities were done with the various platform, such as Google Classroom, WhatsApp group, video calls, and voice notes.

3
The teachers conducted home visits once a week.

4
They had a face-to-face meeting once a week.

5
Each the end of a month, the teachers provided the agreed learning activity preference or other optional tasks. 6 The teachers promoted a competitive atmosphere with activeness points, publishing the tasks, and rewards.

Table 2. The table of reduced results of learning facilities
The teacher had important roles in the learning activities.Although the activities were student-centered, the teachers facilitated them and used the adjusted method based on the current pandemic situation.Online learning was seen as effective to apply in an emergency state situation (Dewi, 2020).Table 2 shows that the learning activities were promoted based on the learners' situations.It could be seen from the given dateline and activities through the teacherstudent agreement.Besides that, teachers provided selective tasks.The learning activities were designed by using activeness points and work results shown at the end of weeks.Learning activity was done via learning video, video call, and voice note of WhatsApp Group, online module, animated PowerPoint, the game of quiz, Google Classroom, and home visit done once a week to find the learners' learning development.Various applied facilities were the education innovation to answer the challenges of learning activities during the pandemic (Dewi, 2020).
Online learning could run properly if it was supported by proper learning infrastructures (Hamid, Sentryo, & Hasan, 2020).Therefore, teachers should apply various learning media platforms based on the learners' characteristics.The use of appropriate learning facilities with the characteristics and learners' skills could improve their learning motivation (Damanik, 2019).It is in line with the findings of Susilawati & Supriyanto (2020).They found that learning facilities positively and significantly influenced learning motivation.

Communication Style
Teachers, learners, and parents had important roles in succeeding in the learning process.Every teacher had his methods to keep the communication well.The data analysis of the interview c an be seen in Table 3. No.

Sub-theme
The correlation among sub-themes 1 The communication ran smoothly via voice notes, video calls, and chatting on WhatsApp Grop.It was done by asking-answering questions.
The communication of parent-teacher ran smoothly via voice notes, video calls, and chatting on WhatsApp Grop The smooth communication facilitated teachers to motivate.
2 Teachers motivated verbally and non-verbally.

3
Teachers interacted with the parents to monitor their learning activities at home.

Table 3. The table of reduced results of communication style
Online learning had weaknesses because it did not support direct interaction between teachers and learners (Lassoued, Alhendawi, & Bashitialshaaer, 2020).Communication during learning should keep going on.The analysis results showed the communication between teachers and learners were running smoothly by using various teaching platform.It happened because teachers were frequently promoting question-answer activities and motivating excellently verbally and nonverbally so learners had the spirit to learn.The communication between teacher and learners were done via voice note, video call, and chatting of WAG.It was realized because the teachers immediately responded to learners so excellent communication could be built.An excellent communication could encourage learners to be active because teachers always responded to the learners' questions, and shared compliments with words or gestures.It was due to the teacher communication style that played a significant influence on the learners' learning motivation (Sucia, 2016).Teachers also could interact with the parents.It had the purpose to monitor and guide the online activity from home and to make learning more competitive.

Rewarding
The learning could run properly when learners were motivated.The reduced results of rewarding are explained in Table 4. No.

Sub-theme
The correlation among sub-themes 1 Motivating learners verbally and non-verbally, such as giving rewards in the form of the Internet balance, learning equipment, and snack Motivating learners by providing rewards, interesting tasks for the learners i.e, drawing, observing objects and telling, showing interesting videos, and providing definition to learn the unstudied materials.
2 Providing tasks that were not monotonous.Learning motivation came from two sources.They were internally and extrinsically.During learning activities, teachers could motivate learners extrinsically.Teachers explained that motivating learners during this pandemic could be done by providing pictures for the tasks.This activity was joyful for learners and could motivate them (Shokiyah, 2014).The teachers also provided interesting videos to motivate learners.They reminded learners to keep up with the materials and greeted them before learning activities so that they were happy.Besides that, providing a reward in the form of Internet balance had a purpose to facilitate the learners to learn joyfully, to motivate, and to attract their interest (Saraswati, Ratminingsih, & Utami, 2020).
Teachers provided a point system for learners.Then, every week, the teachers showed the learners' learning progress results to improve them and to make them feel competitive.Providing points to improve learners' motivation were in line with a study by Sardiman (2015).He found that competition and providing points or symbols in learning activities could make learners motivated.It is in line with Tabrani Rusyan (Syaparuddin, Meldianus, & Elhami, 2018).He found that a realization of motivation could be realized into a competition or competitive achievement among individuals.Several applied matters could motivate learners.Thus, it could be concluded that using appropriate learning would motivate learners and would lead to better learning outcomes.It is in line with Triastuti & Sudira (2019).They found that teaching style, learning style, and motivation influenced the learning outcomes.

Training Critical Thinking Skills during the Pandemic
All respondents argued based on the reality, such as (1) the understanding about critical thinking, (2) the critical thinking learning ideal, and (3) the hindrance of applying critical thinking learning based on the interview results analysis and the reduced data explanation on the tables.

The Teachers' Knowledge about Critical Thinking Skills
Critical thinking is a required skill for learners.Therefore, teachers had to understand it before teaching the skill.Based on the interview analysis, the critical thinking knowledge of the teachers can be explained as shown in Table 5 It dealt with problem-solving.5 Seeking the truth 6 The learners responded with their skills to evaluate.
Table 5.The table of reduced results of learners' learning motivation encouragement The teachers' knowledge upon something taught for the learners.It should be something crucial or important.Without this component, learning could not be done based on the objective.Teachers' understanding of critical thinking skills would bring them to a better learning process.Teachers knew critical thinking skills although it was not in detail.However, the teachers' answers showed that they had the critical thinking skill knowledge.The teachers knew that critical thinking could be done to analyze a problem and make the decision.It was in line with Munawaroh, Pantiwati, & Rofieq (2016).Critical thinking is a thinking activity on a referred thing.It is a means to evaluate and consider the decision to take as a factor of making a decision.The problem dealt with the teachers only understood about the definition but not the implementation of critical thinking skills (Gashan, 2015).

The Ideal Reality of Critical Thinking Skill Learning
Every teacher had various learning methods to optimize the learning activities during the pandemic.The data analysis of the ideal reality of critical thinking skill learning is shown in Table 6.Every teacher had an ideal learning type to teach critical thinking based on the schools' conditions and capabilities.There were many similarities of the ideal reality to teach critical thinking skills for learners.Ideally, to apply critical thinking skill learning, teachers should post the patterned questions to think (Snyder & Snyder, 2008), to invite learners to argue, to provide the chance for learners to respond (Bowell et al., 2020), to provide problems for learners to solve, to use problem-solving learning model, or to apply PBL-inquiry model (Snyder & Snyder, 2008).

Hindrances of Critical Thinking Skill Learning
Hindrances during learning would always occur and could not be avoided.These hindrances might become problems but they could also be the milestone to apply the learning.The hindrances of the learners' critical thinking skills, based on the data analysis, are presented in Table 7. No.

Sub-themes
The correlation among sub-themes 1 There was no direct communication.
The hindrances to apply critical thinking skills were such as indirect communication.It made the teachers had difficulties guiding the learners completely.

2
Having difficulties to promote the online learning 3 Online learning became relaxing learning.

4
Having difficulties teaching critical thinking skills since the class was online.
Table 7.The table of reduced results of critical thinking skill learning hindrances The obstacles of promoting critical thinking skills were experienced by most teachers during this pandemic.Several of them did not realize the method and strategy of critical thinking skill learning and were lack of theoretical understanding to improve critical thinking skills (Gashan, 2015).The learning was carried out with many limitations.Thus, the teachers had not fully applied it due to indirect communication.It made the learning activity difficult and required an appropriate facility.Besides that, it required much money to purchase an Internet balance.There were also network problems and difficulties to get the appropriate application (Bahasoan et al., 2020).
Critical thinking is a skill needed in this 21 st century.Therefore, teachers have to design learning that allows learners to think critically.Based on the interview results, teachers had understood what was meant by critical thinking and they had the ideal understanding to apply critical learning for learning.However, during the realization, the teachers had not applied it because they had hindrances, such as indirect communication so that which made them difficult during the learning activity.The teachers also had difficulties guiding the learners completely if the learners had difficulties answering the questions with critical thinking.It would also make the parents difficult.This even got worsened when it occurred on learners with careless parents toward learning.It would lead to the pressure experienced by learners because no one guided them at home.During the online learning condition, teachers had not applied critical thinking.It is in line with Ariawan (2020).He found that critical thinking skills could be trained during the pandemic.It could be done with a blended-learning method between face-to-face and online learning.Online learning made the teachers having difficulties teaching critical thinking skills.Teachers realized the importance of critical thinking skills.However, due to the reality and circumstances, teachers could not apply it yet.

 CONCLUSION
From the findings and discussion, the research objective was to find out how teachers motivated and encouraged critical thinking skills for learners during this pandemic.The primary school teachers in Dawe sub-district, Kudus municipality, only could improve learning motivation by providing joyful learning for learners, in the form of pictures or figures; and interesting videos, such as animation or cartoon.Besides that, the teachers also provided a better understanding of the importance of the material they learned and asked them to keep up with the materials.Thus, learners understood their situations.It was done to allow transparency between teachers and learners so they could support each other to reach the learning objective.It was applied and could encourage learners' learning motivation during this pandemic.
The critical thinking skill implementation during the pandemic was difficult due to the existing limitations.Thus, during this pandemic, the primary school teachers had not applied learning with critical thinking skills.Even so, teachers had to encourage critical thinking skills through online modules or question-answer.It is important because critical thinking skill habituation would provide excellent impact on learners' mindset, moreover primary school learners.
Based on the findings, the researchers suggested the primary school teachers consistently innovate.Thus, they could improve the learning motivation of the learners because learners were easy to get bored.Teachers should create a better learning environment by cooperating with other teachers and the learners' parents to monitor and guide their learning activities.The teachers provided teaching with critical thinking skills although it was very basic and simple.Thus, learners would be habituated and could develop their knowledge.

3
Providing interesting tasks for children, such as drawing and observing an object and telling it 4Teachers defined learners to keep up with the materials 5 Providing interesting videos to motivate learners

Table 4 .
The table of reduced results of rewarding .

Table 6 .
The table of reduced results of critical thinking skill ideal reality