Higher Order Thinking Skills in Reading Literacy Questions at Vocational High Schools in Indonesia

Abstract

This research was encouraged by the demand for every student to possess higher order thinking skills (HOTS). This ability can be assessed when the question instruments require high-level thinking skills. Hence, the present study aimed to analyze the fulfilment and percentage of high-level thinking skill indicators in reading literacy questions at Vocational High Schools (SMK) in Pekanbaru City. The research was qualitative and employed a content analysis methodology. Data were collected using documentation techniques involving reading literacy instruments obtained from teachers in vocational high schools throughout Pekanbaru city. The development of HOTS-based reading literacy questions was expected to reflect students' reading literacy abilities. The findings indicated that the reading literacy questions developed by teachers were predominantly not HOTS-based. However, some questions exhibited HOTS characteristics, such as critical thinking, creativity, and problem-solving. Based on Aiken’s test conducted by experts on the three teacher-created instruments, it was concluded that over 50% of the questions were not valid. This conclusion was further reinforced by interviews with teachers who encountered challenges in designing reading literacy questions, including difficulty determining operational verbs and a lack of knowledge in developing reading literacy questions, creating HOTS-based questions, and composing answer choices relevant to the provided rules.