On the Plausibility of Bloom’s Higher Order Thinking Strategies on Learner Autonomy: The Paradigm Shift

Abstract

The ultimate goal of any academic program is to educate and bring up thoughtful citizens in societies. By “thoughtfulness” we mean paving the spectrum from simply applying the rules (lower order thinking) to finding proper solution to authentic novel problems (higher order thinking). It is helping the practitioners pave the continuum of knowledge construction towards logic construction, meanwhile restructuring the sense of responsibility, i.e. “autonomy”. The study reported here has investigated the effect of three higher order thinking strategies on enhancing learner autonomy of EFL undergraduates in Iran through instructional intervention. The authors adopted both qualitative and quantitative approaches to answer the research questions, collecting data via the instruments of the test, questionnaire, and interview. The three treatment groups (n = 30 each) receiving one of the three higher order thinking strategies in fifteen sessions of 90 min of the course “reading comprehension III”. The strategy training phase of this study was implicit and embedded in form of awareness raising (Chamot and Rubin, 1994). The instrumental material for all four groups (three treatments and one control) was the same as “Active Skills for Reading 3” by Neil J. Anderson (2014). The control group (n = 30), however, experienced a traditional reading instruction mainly focused on vocabulary development, writing tasks, and comprehension drills. Operationalized through the procedures of the present study and implemented over the first academic semester 2015–2016, Bloom’s higher order thinking strategies had positive influence on enhancing the practitioners’ autonomy, meanwhile some pondering issues pinpointed through the qualitative phase of the study.