A combined HOTS-based assessment/STEM learning model to improve secondary students' thinking skills: A development and evaluation study

Abstract

A STEM learning model is believed to be able to improve students' performance in learning physics significantly including Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS). These skills covered the capability to analyze, evaluate, and create which can be boosted by implementing a right learning model, material, and assessment. This study aims to develop and evaluate a combined HOTS-based assessment/STEM learning model to enhance students' thinking skills. A proposed model was designed by follow the seven steps of Borg & Gall research and development. There are 24 24 eleventh graders of SMAN 1 Kotabumi at North Lampung and 30 tenth graders of SMA YP Unila at Bandar Lampung involved in limited and field trial, respectively. The impact of this model was evaluated by identifying the normalized average gain of pretest-posttest and significance test compared to a conventional STEM model. The results showed that t-value of experimental, control, and comparison of these two classes are 23.29, 13.58, and 4.63 (p<0.001), respectively which confirm a better improvements of thinking skills performed by proposed model.