Reading Comprehension Question Levels in Grade X English Students’ Book in Light of the Issues of Curriculum Policy in Indonesia

Abstract

A B S T R A C TThis article aims at finding out the reading comprehension-question levels as constructed for some chapters of English Students' Book for Grade X published in 2017 by The Ministry of Education and Culture of Indonesia. The data were taken purposively and analyzed using Barrett's taxonomy of reading comprehension to examine the levels of comprehension questions provided in the book. While higher-order thinking skills (HOTS) in Bloom's taxonomy involve students to analyze, to evaluate, and to create, Barrett's reading comprehension levels exhibit corresponding features, namely inferential comprehension, evaluation, and appreciation. The analysis is to show the corresponse the reading comprehension questions in the book to the current issues of HOTS in the curriculum policy of Indonesia. The results demonstrate that while some of the comprehension questions (21%) comply with the higher level of reading comprehension, the rest (nearly 80%) show lower level of reading comprehension. In response to the implementation of the curriculum policy in Indonesia, teachers need to practice constructing higher levels of comprehension questions that considerably make students get used to think critically.

Reflection-based questioning: Aspects affecting Myanmar students’ reading comprehension

“…Based on the school textbook for 9th graders prescribed by the Myanmar Ministry of Education, the test questions numbered 23: 8 items for literal comprehension, 2 for reorganizational comprehension, 5 for inferential comprehension, 5 for evaluative comprehension, and 3 for appreciative comprehension. These test items’ construction aligned with Barrett’s taxonomy of reading comprehension ( Surtantini, 2019 ).…”

“…This taxonomy encompasses five comprehension levels: literal, reorganizational, inferential, evaluative, and appreciative. Specifically, (1) for literal comprehension questions, students directly identify stated information; (2) for reorganizational questions, they order and/or organize presented information in different and meaningful manner; (3) for inferential questions, they respond to information inductively or deductively; (4) for evaluative questions, they make decisions based on stated information; and (5) for appreciative questions, they respond to stated information based on their emotions ( Surtantini, 2019 ).…”

Effectiveness of the reflection-based reciprocal teaching approach for reading comprehension achievement in upper secondary school in Myanmar

“…There were a total of 23 items (literal comprehension: seven items; reorganizational comprehension: two items; inferential comprehension: five items; evaluative comprehension: five items; appreciative comprehension: four items). These items were constructed in accordance with Barrett's taxonomy of reading comprehension levels by the given points in a table of specification (Surtantini, 2019).…”

Students’ Reading Comprehension Skill: The Roles of Text Readability and Question Difficulty

“…For example, in one of the English textbooks published by the Indonesian Ministry of Education, more than 80% of the questions are comprised of literal comprehension questions. (Surtantini, 2019). Even in the matter of English national examination, most of the questions are of the lower level types (Putra & Abdullah, 2019).…”