Integrating minangkabau culture into science education: preservice teachers' informal reasoning on ethnoscience for critical thinking and creativity

Abstract

This study analyzes how preservice science teachers construct informal reasoning when evaluating two Minangkabau cultural practices, namely batik tanah liek and the balimau tradition, as contexts for ethnoscience. Batik tanah liek emphasizes clay as a natural dye and fabric preservative, wheras balimau is a tradition of cleansing oneself using lime and flowers before Ramadan. This study contributes new insights by mapping the patterns of informal reasoning of preservice teachers on two traditions that have different scientific structures and religious values and linking them to pedagogical implications for ethnoscience learning. Data were collected through semi-structured questionnaires and analyzed using Braun and Clarke's inductive thematic analysis. Four categories of informal reasoning, namely personal, social, cultural, and environmental, guide how participants assess scientific relevance, cultural meaning, moral sensitivity, and learning potential. The results show that preservice teachers have stronger involvement and awareness of batik tanah liek, which provides concrete and structured scientific phenomena that trigger more rational-scientific reasoning and conceptual creativity. Conversely, balimau evokes moral-emotional reasoning due to its strong religious and socio-communal values, thus encouraging pedagogical caution. These differences indicate cultural bias and variations in epistemic access to traditional practices. Informal reasoning has been shown to play a role in training critical and creative thinking skills through evidence analysis, cultural context interpretation, and scientific solution exploration. This study emphasizes the need to integrate ethnoscience analysis into the PCK/TPACK curriculum to strengthen culturally responsive science education.