Higher-Order Thinking Skills on Test Items Designed by English Teachers: A Content Analysis

Abstract

In dealing with the demand for critical and creative thinking skills in the 21st-century, the Indonesiagovernment has implemented 2013 curriculum which promotes higher-order thinking skills (HOTS)in the classroom. However, the implementation of HOTS-based curriculum gave impact to the wayteacher assesses the students' thinking skills as they are expected to be able to design HOTS-basedtest items in assessing students. Accordingly, this study investigated the higher-order thinking skillsrepresented on the test items designed by English teachers of Indonesia at the senior high schoollevel. This study was conducted qualitatively by analyzing four sets of test items, gathered from asenior high school in Indonesia from 2016 to 2019, using Bloom’s revised taxonomy. It was foundthat most questions were dominated by lower-order thinking skills, specifically understanding level,with the total percentage of more than 50% each set of test items. However, the higher-orderthinking skill found in the test items is the only skill of analyzing while the skills of evaluating orcreating were not covered. Thus, it is suggested that an evaluation is important to evaluate the testitems made since the proportion of lower-order thinking skills as well as higher-order thinking skillsare not proportional and whether those test items can be sufficient to promote higher-order thinkingskills to the students.