Higher-Order Thinking Skills on Test Items Designed by English Teachers: A Content Analysis

Authors : Fajar DWİ UTAMİ, Joko NURKAMTO, Sri MARMANTO

Pages : 756-765

Doi:10.24331/ijere.629581

View : 18 | Download : 9

Publication Date : 2019-12-01

Article Type : Research Paper

Abstract :In dealing with the demand for critical and creative thinking skills in the 21st-century, the Indonesia government has implemented 2013 curriculum which promotes higher-order thinking skills insert ignore into journalissuearticles values(HOTS); in the classroom. However, the implementation of HOTS-based curriculum gave impact to the way teacher assesses the students` thinking skills as they are expected to be able to design HOTS-based test items in assessing students. Accordingly, this study investigated the higher-order thinking skills represented on the test items designed by English teachers of Indonesia at the senior high school level. This study was conducted qualitatively by analyzing four sets of test items, gathered from a senior high school in Indonesia from 2016 to 2019, using Bloom’s revised taxonomy. It was found that most questions were dominated by lower-order thinking skills, specifically understanding level, with the total percentage of more than 50% each set of test items. However, the higher-order thinking skill found in the test items is the only skill of analyzing while the skills of evaluating or creating were not covered. Thus, it is suggested that an evaluation is important to evaluate the test items made since the proportion of lower-order thinking skills as well as higher-order thinking skills are not proportional and whether those test items can be sufficient to promote higher-order thinking skills to the students. 
Keywords : Higher order thinking skills, test items, blooms revised taxonomy