Pre-Service Mathematics Teachers' Knowledge about Higher-Order Thinking Skills

Abstract

Mathematics learning should be designed to develop students' higher order thinking skills. A deeper understanding of higher-order thinking will support teachers to be able to design mathematics learning that promotes students' higher-order thinking skills. The purposes of this research are to describe pre-service mathematics teachers' knowledge about Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) and their ability in designing HOTS-based problem. The research participants are 9 pre-service mathematics teachers joining profession education for pre-service teachers at Sanata Dharma University. Data sources in this research include a written test about teachers' understanding of HOTS and a written test about teachers' ability to design HOTS-based problem. The analysis of data involved Miles & Huberman model. Qualitative results showed that pre-service mathematics teachers were not able to associate the cognitive demands of HOTS-based problem with the dimension of cognitive processes of Bloom's Revised Taxonomy. Besides, almost all the pre-service teachers were not able to design a non-routine problem, they tended to design a familiar application problem that requires students to memorize facts, concepts, or procedures that have been done before and apply them to the context. Based on the results, can be concluded that pre-service teachers' knowledge about HOTS and their ability to design HOTS-based problem are very low.