Analysis Of New Students' Science Process Skills Readiness And Its Impact On Basic Physics Learning Outcomes 1

Physics education at the university level requires mastery of Science Process Skills (SPS) as the basis for conceptual understanding and scientific thinking skills. However, first-year students often show high heterogeneity in practical skills as a result of differences in their previous learning backgrounds. This study aims to analyze the relationship between Science Process Skills (SPS) and the learning outcomes of Physics Education students at UIN Ar-Raniry Banda Aceh in the Basic Physics 1 course for the 2024 cohort. The study employed a quantitative approach with a correlational design and total sampling technique involving 20 students. KPS data were obtained through a science process skills test, while learning outcomes were derived from final course grades. The Shapiro–Wilk normality test indicated that one variable was not normally distributed, so the relationship analysis was conducted using Spearman’s rho Spearman’s rho. The results showed a significant positive relationship between SPS and learning outcomes with a correlation coefficient of 0.431 (p = 0.029), which is in the moderately strong category. An important finding in this study is the existence of a very wide gap in SPS among first-year students, while academic scores are relatively more homogeneous, indicating an imbalance between practical skills and cognitive achievement. These results confirm that SPS is closely related to success in learning physics, so that strengthening and standardizing practice-based learning in the early stages of lectures is important to improve the quality of physics education more evenly.