The use of cognitive domain in questions: The perception of students and lecturers of public universities in Aceh

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate the cognitive domain of Bloom's taxonomy used in questions asked by lecturers to their students at two public universities in Banda Aceh, Indonesia. The data for the study were gathered from both the students' and lecturers' perceptions. There are 218 students and 19 lecturers involved in this survey as the respondents. This study found that both lecturers and students from these public universities perceived that the lecturers frequently used all levels of the cognitive domain of Bloom's taxonomy. The students perceived that the most frequent cognitive domain used by the lecturers in questions is the domain of create, followed by the cognitive domain of understand, remember, evaluate, apply and lastly the cognitive domain of analyze. On the other hand, the lecturers believed that they use the cognitive domain of remember as the most frequent cognitive domain in questions. In the second place, the lecturers perceived the use of domain of understand while in the third, and fourth place there are the domain of create and the domain of evaluate, followed by the cognitive domain of analyze and apply. Therefore, lecturers are recommended to maintain the quality of questions in classrooms to promote students' critical thinking by using all cognitive domains of Bloom's taxonomy. Universities should frequently survey to have a reliable and valid record of lecturers' performance based on students' and lecturers' opinions to consistently improve the quality of teaching and learning.