List of studies

Table 2.1 Studies on the critical thinking: An Empirical Review Teachers role
Author
and Year
Lim, C. K.,
Eng, L. S.,
&
Mohamed,
A. R.
(2014).

Abbasnasa
b Sardareh,
S., &
Rashid
Mohd
Saad, M.
(2013).

Nagappan,
R. (2001).

Mohamed,
A. Munirah
& Nik, N.
Suryani
(2012).

Variables

Sample

Instrument

Reading comprehension test,

revised Barretts taxonomy, revised
Blooms taxonomy

788 Year 5
students of
15 rural
schools in
Malaysia

50 MCQ
reading
comprehensio
n

Classroom questioning technique

2 ESL
teachers in a
primary
school,
Kuala
Lumpur

Observation &
teachers
interview

Observation,
Interview,
Document
analysis,
Questionnaire

Implementation of HOTS in
schools & teachers training
colleges

Teaching methods used in teaching

to encourage critical thinking in
students.

An excellent
Science
teacher in
secondary
school, Ipoh

Observation

Assaly, I.
R. &
Smadi, O.
M. (2015)

Cognitive levels of reading

questions, Blooms taxonomy,

Master
Class
textbook

Textbook
analysis,
Checklist

Tan Shin
Yen, Siti
Hajar Halili

Effective Teaching of HigherOrder Thinking (HOT) in

Education

Articles
review

(2015)

The Acceptance And Problems

Faced By Teachers In
Krishnan,
B. (2014)

Conducting Higher Order

Thinking Skills

five teachers
who are
involved in
Lower
Secondary
especially,
Form One
and Form
Two, johor
bahru

Teachers
interview

Previous studies (article review)

1. Instilling HOTS in the English Curriculum
The importance of English in the highly technical society and fast-paced change in the
world has forced students to master the language in order to be functional in the
society. The ministry sees it as vital to infuse HOTS to English teaching beginning in
the primary education level (Ministry of Education, Malaysia, 2011). Teachers have
been required to teach English while infusing and emphasizing the following six
thinking skills: remembering, understanding, analysing, applying, evaluating and
creating. Thus, teachers must emphasize HOTS during teaching to improve
understanding and ask the right instructional questions about the text taught to enhance
students thinking.
Assaly and Smadi (2015, p.101) claims that reading comprehension is the fundamental
of any teaching and learning. If a student fails to read proficiently and critically thus it
is difficult to understand history, biology, social science or math. For that matter,
textbooks must emphasize reading comprehension strategies and guide students to

read critically while reading in the language lessons. The main goal of teaching HOTS
is to enable students to acquire these skills and apply them while reading in different
disciplines outside the school scope. Sidek (2010, p.83) asserts that secondary
students may not be prepared for the more difficult cognitive demands of reading tasks
in EFL at the tertiary level if they are only exposed to reading tasks that require low
cognitive demands.
2. The Role Of English Textbooks in Developing Students Higher-Order Thinking
Skills
Textbooks exert a powerful influence on education and thus the selection of the
textbook to be used is carefully done. The text in the textbooks is the core component
for students to achieve comprehension in the subject matter. Then, questions which are
the next component of the textbook will be needed to second the comprehension
process. According to Assaly and Smadi (2015, p.102), text in the textbook should be
followed by good questions and activities that help its readers to achieve the
educational goals and critical thinking. Previously Hamaker (1986, p.237) and Andre
(1987, p.81) claim that higher order questions facilitate the learning of factual
information from text and increase the amount of attention that readers dedicate to
process a text. This illustrates the role of questions in promoting higher order
processing of the text.
It is worth mentioning that some research indicates that most questions in the
textbooks emphasize the lower-order cognitive level (Cotton, 1991; Ighbaria, 2013;
Riazi & Mosalaejad, 2010).
THE ACCEPTANCE AND PROBLEMS FACED BY TEACHERS IN CONDUCTING HIGHER
ORDER THINKING SKILLS

BARATHIMALAR A/P KRISHNAN (2014)

The main aim of this study is to investigate teachers responses towards the idea of teaching
Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) questions in School Based Assessment (SBA). This research
aims to investigate teachers problems in implementing HOTS questions in one of the schools in
Johor Bahru. The research design for this study uses structured interview questions. A total of five
teachers who are involved in Lower Secondary especially, Form One and Form Two were identified
as the respondents. The interviews were carried out face to face, in order to get reliable and valid
information. These teachers have experiences in both exam oriented assessment and School
Based Assessment as well. Moreover, they are capable of differentiating between the approach in
teaching Lower Order thinking Skills (LOTS) and Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) clearly.
Qualitative methodology has been used as the primary data collection. The interview questions
were built very carefully to cater the aim of the research. The interviews were video-recorded,
transcribed and analysed by categorising the raw data accordingly to the research questions.
Findings were coded to make identification task easier in assisting and categorizing teachers
responses. The transcriptions were done in two ways, the first one is by respondents, and the next
one is, by classification according to the research questions. The research revealed that teachers
are willing and realize the role of HOTS in producing thinking society. However, the structure should
be developed and well organised, in order to, to motivate them in implementing new ideas as the
HOTS approach.

Teachers perception
Teachers views of teaching and learning influence their classroom practice
(Prawat, 1992). Prawat also suggests that currently, these beliefs support
traditional practice, best characterized as a transmission approach to
teaching and an absorptionist approach to learning. As a result, the
dominant forms of classroom discourse past and present are teacher
lecture and teacher- led recitations (Cuban, 1984; Sternberg and Martin,
1988). The overriding agenda is to transmit to students information and
ideas, and then request that students reproduce them either orally or in
writing. Teachers views of teaching and learning constitute an important
obstacle in attempts to change normal patterns of classroom interaction
(Cohen, et al. 1990; Putnam and Borko, In press). It is also true, for example,

in the case of constructivist approach to teaching. While there are several

interpretations of what this theory means, most agree that it involves a
dramatic change in the focus of teaching, putting the students own efforts
to understand at the center of the educational enterprise (Prawat, 1992). The
adoption of such an approach to teaching and learning would result in major
changes in the teachers role. Thus, in all constructivist teaching-learning
scenarios, the traditional telling- listening relationship between teacher and
student is replaced by one that is more complex and interactive. It is not
surprising that constructivist teaching places greater demands on teachers
and students. As Cohen (1988a) points out, Teachers who take this path
must work harder, concentrate more, and embrace larger pedagogical
responsibilities than if they only assigned text chapters and seatwork
(p.255).
For thinking to take place in classrooms, it may be important for teachers to
convey to students that the goal of instruction is thinking, that the
responsibility for thinking is theirs, that is desirable to have more than one
solution, that it is commendable when they take time to plan, that an answer
can be changed with additional information. Much research has also shown
that active learning has a positive effect on students development of
decision-making and problem solving skills (Thomas, 1980, cited in Costa,
1985a). When higher-level thinking, creativity, and problem solving are the
objectives, students need to be in a classroom climate where they are in the
decision making role (Costa, 1985b). Available evidence also suggests that
teachers need to possess the right attitude and beliefs necessary to teach
HOTS and English Language. This is because teachers views of teaching and
learning influence their classroom practice. It has been shown that what
teachers think of their students also influences their teaching, and in this
case the teaching of higher- order thinking skills in language classrooms.
There also seems to be a serious need for teachers to change their beliefs so
that students could be prepared to gradually take over all the goal-setting,
context-creating, motivational, analytical, and inferential actions which are
usually done by the teachers.