The Development of Geomobile App-Based Outdoor Study to Improve Critical-Social Abilities and Collaborative in the 21st Century

Abstract

Geography learning in high school is built through field and contextual experiences to verify the theories. The learning method used by the geography teacher is not quite effective in improving students’ critical-social and collaborative abilities. This study aims to 1) develop a Geomobile app-based outdoor study that is valid and practical, and 2) determine its effectiveness in improving students’ critical-social and collaborative abilities in the 21st century. This study used research and development with a modified version of the Borg and Gall model. This research utilized validity tests conducted by material experts, media professionals, and learning specialists. The authentic instruments used to measure critical-social and collaboration abilities. The data analyst used descriptive statistics to assess the quality of the product and conducted an independent sample t-test to evaluate the effectiveness of the Geomobile app for outdoor study. The research was conducted on 216 eleventh-grade Social Science students in five high schools in East Java Province during the academic year 2021–2022. Research findings show that students need tools to enhance essential skills in the 21st century through the use of Geomobile app-based outdoor study. The development results indicate that expert validation feedback on the Geomobile app is very positive, with an average rating of 93%. Additionally, the Geomobile app has been found to effectively enhance critical-social abilities by 59% and collaborative abilities by 63%. Therefore, this development effectively improves students’ abilities in the 21st century. The research has provided support for students to become future social agents, especially in terms of building a better working place and social community in the 21st century.