The Analysis of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTs) in the Test Questions Constructed by English Teachers

Abstract

The curriculum 2013 encourages the students' Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTs). In this case, the teachers should try to meet the demands to achieve the curriculum 2013 goals. One of the effective ways to help the students to attain these thinking skills is teachers' questions. The teachers' questions, to some extent, can stimulate the students' thinking process. The purpose of this study was to analyze HOTs in the test questions constructed by the English teachers. This study used a qualitative content analysis design. The data resources of this study were the test questions designed by two different junior high school teachers. The data were collected from the question items in the teacher-made tests and were analyzed following revised Bloom's taxonomy framework. The results of this study show that the test questions made by the teachers require more HOTs-type questions because the tests are mainly LOTs-type questions. The majority of the test questions cover understanding questions (50%), followed by remembering (42.5%), analysing (3.75%), evaluating (2.5%), and creating (1.25%). Unfortunately, no test item is classified as applying question. Based on the results, it shows that the test questions made by the teacher lack HOTs-type questions.

Higher Order Thinking Skills in EFL classrooms: Evidence in five secondary schools

“…The objective classified as create is getting the student develop a new product by arranging some part or elements to be the pattern which was firstly unclear. The assessment using level C6 was also found by previous researchers (Ilham et al, 2020;Musliha et al, 2021). Although the majority of participants were aware of assessing HOT questions, there were two participants who did not include HOTS in the evaluation.…”

“…There were two participants who used level C5 in the assessments. This is congruent with the study conducted by Musliha et al (2021). HOTS questions level C6 (create) were given by two participants in which the students were assessed to compose the text and perform dialogues.…”

“…A number of studies have been conducted in order to examine the implementation of Higher Order Thinking Skills in EFL classroom. Researchers investigated how Higher Order Thinking Skills were employed in lesson plan (Haryati et al, 2021;Putri & Sulityaningrum, 2021), the strategies to foster students' Higher Order Thinking Skills (Djami & Kuswandono, 2020;Gozali et al, 2021;Mursyid & Kurniawati, 2019) and Higher Order Thinking Skills in evaluation (Ilham et al, 2020;Musliha et al, 2021;Nada & Melani, 2021;Utami et al, 2019). In Indonesia, the study on the implementation of Higher Order Thinking Skills in three learning stages, preparation, teaching and learning process, and evaluation, is scarce.…”

Exploring Students’ LOTS and HOTS in Answering Reading Questions

“…≤ 39 8 44% Poor information, including C1, C2, and C3. Higher order thinking skills (HOTS) present critical thinking skills to students, which include the ability to analyze (C4), evaluate (C5), and create (C6) (HOTS) (Husamah et al, 2018;Musliha et al, 2021). Motivation, students' attitudes in the EFL class, and reading strategies affect language learning.…”

“…The research, explored the distribution of HOTS in English teacher-made tests, the relevance of the English teacher-made test to the skills in English simplified syllabus, and the reason for HOTS being less common in English-made tests (Syahdanis et al, 2021). The findings imply that instructors' exam questions should contain more HOTs-type questions because the assessments are mostly LOTs-type questions (Musliha et al, 2021). The purpose of this research is to explore what students' LOTS and HOTS are when it comes to responding to reading questions.…”