THINKING ORDER SKILLS OF READING COMPREHENSION
QUESTIONS IN ENGLISH TEXTBOOK FOR ELEVENTH
GRADE OF SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL BASED ON
BLOOM’S TAXONOMY
A THESIS
Submitted to Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Degree of Sarjana Pendidikan
By:
NURASIAH LUBIS
Registration Number: 2122121027
ENGLISH AND LITERATURE DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND ARTS
ABSTRACT
Lubis, Nurasiah. 2122121027. Thinking Order Skills of Reading Comprehension Questions in English Textbook for Eleventh Grade of Senior High School Based on Bloom’s Taxonomy. A Thesis: English Department. Faculty of Languages and Arts. State University of Medan. 2016.
The objective of this study aimed to analyzing higher order thinking skills of reading comprehension questions in English textbook for eleventh grade of senior high school. It also used qualitative research method for collected, analyzed and
classified reading questions based on revised of Bloom’s Taxonomy. The data of
this study were taken from reading comprehension questions in Contextual English textbook. The findings showed that the distribution of the higher order thinking skills looks like: the analyze skill obtains 20 out of 155 reading comprehension questions (12.9%) while the evaluate skill only obtains 4 out 155 questions (2.6%) and the create skill obtains 2 out of 155 questions (1.2%). The dominant level of the higher order thinking skills contained in analyze skill (12.9%). These results do not achieve proportion of thinking order skills namely 30% for C1 and C2, 40% for C3 and C4, and 30% for C5 and C6. It shows that the distribution of the higher order thinking skills in the reading comprehension questions in Contextual English textbook is unequal.
Key words: English Language textbook, reading comprehension questions,
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Firstly, praise and great gratitude to the Almighty God Allah SWT for His blessing, mercy, opportunity and helping the researcher to complete this Thesis entitled “Thinking Order Skills of Reading Comprehension Questions in English Textbook for Eleventh Grade of Senior High School Based on Bloom’s Taxonomy”.Shalawat and Salam to our Prophet Muhammad SAW who has brought us out from the darkness into the brightness world that full of knowledge.
This thesis is arranged to fulfill the requirement for the degree of SarjanaPendidikan (S1) at English Department, Faculty of Language and Arts, State University of Medan.
This Thesis could have been accomplished because of guidance, encouragement, suggestion and comment from people for whom the researcher would like to extend her sincere and special thanks to:
1. Prof. Dr. Syawal Gultom, M.Pd.,the Rector of State University of Medan.
2. Dr. Isda Pramuniati, M.Hum.,the Dean Faculty of Languages and Arts. 3. Prof. Dr. Hj. Sumarsih, M.Pd., the Head of English and Literature
Department.
4. Nora Ronita Dewi, S.S., M.Hum., the Head of Education Program of English Department.
5. Prof. Dr. Busmin Gurning, M.Pd., the Thesis Advisor. 6. Dra. Masitowarni Siregar, M.Ed., the Academic Advisor.
7. All the Lecturers of English Department who has thought, guided, and advised her throughout the academic years.
8. Euis Sri Wahyuningsih, M.Pd., as the Administration Staff of English Department, for her attention, assistance, and information in completing
this Thesis
9. Drs. Banu Susanto, M.Si, the Head of Administration Staff of Digital Library, for the support and suggestion in the process of completing this
Thesis, and all Administration Staff of Digital Library for the good
10.Special thanks to her beloved family, beloved parents, her father
Syahruddin Lubis and her mother Asmina Nasution for their great love, prayers, motivation, guidance, support, spirit, and everything that they
have given to the writer during the process of completing this Thesis.
ThisThesis is dedicated to you. And her beloved brother and sisters,
Mardani Lubis, KhairunNisa Lubis, Nur Halimah Lubis and Nur Eliza Lubis. And also her beloved grandmother, Rusiah, Big thanks for them, for their support and their funny acts for her in amusing the writer as
long as the writer still in her education.
11.Mr. Sungkono and Mrs.Paini, the owner of the boarding house and also BBS family, Sukma Adelina Ray, Sartika, Dingin Harianty, Niar
Paramita, Siti Saodah (Etty), Setia Erliza, Thank you for every prayer, togetherness, motivation, helping and lovefor every moments.
12.My appreciation to Syarfina Y. Aminy S.Pd., M.Pd as the Musrifah
(teacher) for support and motivation, and also her beloved friends Ayu
Trisna, Nurul Soraya Saragih, Djuwi Adiba, and also all of Muslimah in MHTI chapter Unimed, who cannot be mention one by one, thank you
for every prayer, spirit, support, motivation, and help for every moments.
13.All of my classmates in Regular C 2012 who cannot be mentioned one by
one, thank you for sharing knowledge, helping, friendship, kindness
during spending time in campus.
The writer realizes that this thesis still has the paucity,she conveniently welcomes any suggestions, comments, critics, and advices that will improve the quality of this thesis. She hopes that this thesis would be useful for those who read and feel interested in the field of this study.
Medan, September 2016
The Researcher,
NurasiahLubis
TABLE OF CONTENTS
2. Advantages of Disadvantages of Using Textbook ... 8
3. Reading ... 9
10.Advantages of Higher Order Thinking Skills ... 23
B. Relevant Studies ... 24
C. Conceptual Framework ... 25
CHAPTER III. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ... 28
A. Research Design ... 28
C. Technique for Collecting Data ... 28
D. Technique for Analyzing Data ... 30
CHAPTER IV. DATA AND DATA ANALYSIS ... 31
A. The Data ... 31
B. Data Analysis ... 34
C. Research Findings ... 42
D. Discussions ... 43
CHAPTER V. CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS ... 48
A. Conclusions ... 48
B. Suggestions ... 49
REFERENCESS ... 50
LIST OF TABLES
Pages
Table 2.1Cognitive Dimension of Original Bloom’s Taxonomy ... 13
Table 2.2 Formulated of Revised of Bloom’s Taxonomy ... 17
Table 2.3Revised Bloom's Taxonomy key words, model questions, & instructional strategies ... 20
Table 4.1 The Distribution of the Essay Reading Exercises ... 32
Table 4.2 The test types of Reading Exercises ... 33
Table 4.3 The Distribution of the Cognitive Domain in Reading Exercises ... 34
Table 4.4 The Distribution of the Higher Order Thinking Skills in Reading Exercises... 39
Table 4.5 The Questions List of Analyze Skill ... 40
Table 4.6 The Questions List of Evaluate Skill ... 41
LIST OF FIGURES
Pages Figure 2.1 The Difference of Bloom’s Taxonomy and
LIST OF APPENDIX
Pages
APPENDIX 1 Formulated of Revised of Bloom’s Taxonomy ... 55
APPENDIX 2 The Checklist Table ... 57
APPENDIX 3 The Distribution of the Reading Questions based on
Cognitive Domains of Bloom’s Taxonomy ... 58
APPENDIX 4 The Reading Comprehension Questions in
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION A. Background of the Study
English is very important to be learned because it becomes an
international language is used by people around the world to communicate
each other. Indonesian students learn English as a foreign language because it
becomes a subject. It is used in English classrooms but not in everyday
communication. Classroom teaching consists of three main elements: the
teacher, the student and the textbook. As one of elements in learning process,
the textbook plays important part in English teaching and learning process.
Muchlis (2015: 314) state that English textbook is the most commonly
resource used in English language teaching process. Textbook plays important
role in teaching and learning process because it provides beneficial guidance
and covers the materials that teachers need to deliver.
In English textbook there are four skills that must be learned by
students, they are: listening, speaking, reading and writing. As a skill, reading
is clearly one of important language skill that where students have to read
English material for their subject. Through reading, the students get more
information and more easily to understand the sentences. They also can
improve their knowledge by reading. The students should be known what they
read, so they can get a point what they need. By the reading, the reader
expected get information. Actually, the students often thought to be easier to
2
problems if they do not comprehending a text and they do not get information
from the text. Besides, their vocabulary and their reading skills to comprehend
the text or sentences still need to improve.
Assaly and Smadi (2015: 101) stated that textbooks must emphasize
reading comprehension strategies and guide students to read critically while
reading in the language lessons. In English textbook Reading comprehensions
usually follow by exercises and questions. As the exercises, the teachers use
questions to find out whether the students have understood the text or not, and
the students can comprehend the text and get more information from the
exercises, especially in reading skills.
Day and Park (2005) in their journal states:
The use of questions is an integral aspect of such activities and in our
experience as language teachers we have seen that well-designed
comprehension questions help students interact with the text create and
construct meaning and in addition we have seen well- developed
comprehension questions help our students begin to think critically and
intelligently. (p.61)
Besides, reading comprehension questions assist the students to
comprehend the sentences. Yusak in Fitria et.al (2014: 3) stated that question
in the reading class is not to test the students, however, it is used to make
students aware of the way language is used to convey meaning and of the
strategies he can use to recover the meaning from the text. By answering the
question, students can think critically and use different level of thinking order
3
Therefore, the students need levels thinking to answer the questions to
understand and comprehend about the text. Gunning in Fitria et.al (2014:4)
stated that taxonomies are appropriate indicators of the relative position that
questions occupy on a scale of complexity. Test questions should be examined
to make sure higher levels of questions being asked.
Bloom taxonomy is appropriate to apply in reading comprehension
questions to helping students to have critical thinking. Bloom’s taxonomy
offers six levels of thinking namely knowledge, comprehension, application,
analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. However, in 2001, Krathwohl has been
Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy. The cognitive domain process includes
remembering, understanding, applying, analysing, evaluating and creating.
Thinking order in Bloom Taxonomy are helping students to learn
something in meaningful process and improving the students’ overall
performance. It is also important to improve their skill to understand and
comprehend reading text, so they can get more information from the text and
they can convey the information what they have from the text. Mayer (2002)
in his writing, he states that higher order thinking skill gives a broader vision
of learning that includes not only acquiring knowledge but also being able to
use knowledge in a variety of new situations, promotes the meaningful
learning, and actively engages the students in the process of constructing
4
The English textbook entitle “Contextual English” for the eleventh
grade of senior high school written by BambangSugeng and Noor Zaimah
published by Platinum. The textbook is based on Educational Unit-Oriented
Curriculum (Kurikulum Tingkat SatuanPendidikan) 2006.
From the textbook page 158, a text which the title is A Telephone Call
and the reading exercise questions is as follows:
1. What is the story about?
2. What was the speaker doing?
3. To whom that the speaker speak?
4. In some part of story, the speaker counted something. What
did she exactly do?
5. Did the speaker finally do what she intended to do?
From the reading exercise questions above not indicate to higher order
thinking skill because the exercise questions still depend to the text and the
exercise questions not help the students to use their critical thinking. Moreover
the higher order thinking level should allow the students to gives more insight
into their thinking and learning to answer like the essay questions, the students
need to use their own words. It is reasonable step to analyze the reading
question exercise another one in the textbook, whether the textbook
appropriate with the level of Bloom’s Taxonomy or not and this research can
help the teacher to organize the reading exercise questions which is help the
students to think critically.
It is very important for the teacher to choice and selecting a textbook
which is appropriate for the students to develop their thinking skills by using
analysis thinking order skills of reading comprehension questions in English
5
document analysis is needed to know the textbook is appropriate or not with
thinking order skills of Bloom’s Taxonomy.
B. Problems of the Study
The problems of the study are formulated as follows:
1. How does the distribution of the higher order thinking skills in reading
comprehension questions of Contextual English textbook?
2. What is the dominant level of higher order thinking skills of Revised
Bloom’s Taxonomy in reading comprehension questions of Contextual
English textbook?
3. Is the distribution of the higher order thinking skills in reading
comprehension questions in Contextual English textbook appropriate
with thinking order skills of Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy?
C. Objectives of the Study
This study has objectives to answer the questions above. The
objectives of study tried to find out:
1. To know the distribution of the higher order thinking skills in reading
comprehension questions of Contextual English textbook?
2. To know the dominant level of higher order thinking skills of Bloom’s
Taxonomy in reading comprehension questions of Contextual English
textbook?
3. To know the distribution of the higher order thinking skills in reading
comprehension questions in Contextual English textbook appropriate
6
D. Scope of the Study
This study is only limited in Contextual English textbook for eleventh
grade of senior high school and focus on reading comprehension questions
because the writer only analyze the higher order thinking skills based on
Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy.
E. Significance of the Study
Results of this study are expected to be giving out the theoretical and
practical significance.
1. Theoretically
- The expected of this research is to enrich the learning of higher
thinking order based on Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy
2. Practically
- Teacher, to give broader insight about the textbook selection to
develop students thinking skill ability in reading comprehension
- Students, Giving information to improve their thinking skill ability
in reading comprehension,
- The readers, to have interest research to enlarge their
CHAPTER V
CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
A. CONCLUSIONS
After using checklist table as an instrument for collecting the data
from Contextual English textbook, the writer concludes that the
distribution of the higher order thinking skill in the reading questions is
lower than the distribution of the lower order thinking skill. It is proven by
the result of the data which shows that the distribution of the higher order
thinking skill in reading questions obtains 26 out of 155 questions or
16.7% while the distribution of the lower order thinking skill obtains 129
out of 155 questions or 83.2%. The detailed conclusions are as follows:
1. Thedistribution of the higher order thinking skills looks like:
The analyze level gets the highest number by obtaining 20
out of 155 questions or 12.9%
The evaluate level, obtain 4 out of 155 question or 2.6%,
and
The create level, the most critical thinking skill, obtains 2
out of 155 questions or 1.2%.
2. The dominant level of higher order thinking in textbook contain in
analyze skill gets 20 items out of 155 or 12.9 %. The textbook
emphasizes more on the analyze skill than evaluate and create
skill even though if comparing to the other six cognitive domains,
49
3. The higher order thinking skill is not properly availablein
Contextual English textbook, and inappropriate with thinking
order skills of Revised of Bloom’s Taxonomy.
B. SUGGESTIONS
In this occasion, the writer would like to give some suggestions
that might be useful for the teachers, the students, and everyone who read
this study:
1. The English teacher should train the students to improve their
critical thinking or higher order thinking skill so that their higher
order thinking skill could be better.
2. The authors and publisher of English textbook more complete the
order thinking by enriching some exercise which could train the
students to have the higher order thinking skill. And developed
reading questions that use high order thinking by Bloom’s
Taxonomy.
3. The readers of this study are hoped to have interest to enlarge their
understanding about thinking order skill, and get some references
50
REFERENCESS
Anderson, L., & Krathwohl, D. R. 2001. A taxonomy for learning, teaching, and assessing: a revision of Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. New York: Longman.
Ansary,H, and Babaii,E, 2002. Universal Characteristic of EFL/ESL Textbook: A Step towards System Textbook Evaluation, The Internet TESL Journal, Vol.8, No.2
Ary, Jacobs, and Sorensen.2010. Introduction to Research in Education. Canada: Wadswort
Asaly,R and Smadi,M,2015. “Using Bloom’s Taxonomy to Evaluate the
Cognitive of Master Class Textbook’s Questions”, English Language Teaching, Vol 8, No.5
Abdelrahman, M, 2014, “An Analysis of the Tenth Grade English Language Textbooks Questions in Jordan Based on the Revised Edition of Bloom's Taxonomy”, Journal of Education and Practice, Vol. 5 No. 18
Bogdan, R.C and Biklen, S. K. 1998. Qualitative Research for Education : an Introduction to Theories and Method.New York : Pearson Education Group
Brookhart,Susan.M. 2010. How to Asses Higher-Order Thinking Skills in Your Classroom. Alexandria: ASCD Member Book.
Cecelia Munzenmaier Cecelia, MS, with Rubin Nancy.2013. PERSPECTIVE Bloom Taxonomy: What’s Old is New Again. Scoot Hanson.
Crawley, Sharon J and Merrit, King 2000. Remediating Reading Difficulties. New
York: McGraw-Hill.
Chou Ming,P, 2010.” Advantages and Disadvantages of ESL Course Books”, The
Internet TESL Journal, Vol.16, No.11
Cheng,W, and Hung,L, 2011, Thinking of the Textbook in the ESL/EFL Classroom, English language Teaching, Vol.4, No.2
Day, Richard R and Park, J, 2005. Developing Reading Comprehension Questions. Reading in a Foreign Lnaguage, Vol.17 No.1
51
Fitria,E, Syarif,H, and Refnaldi, 2014, “ An Analysis of Reading Comprehension
Question in Textbook “ English Text in use and Look Ahead” for Senior
High School Grade X”, Journal English Language Teaching (ELT), Vol.2
No.2
Freahat M.Nasser and Smadi M. Oqlah 2014, “Lower-order and Higher-order Reading Questions in Secondary and University Level EFL Textbooks in Jordan”, Theory and Practice in Language Studies, Vol. 4, No. 9
Grabe, Willian and L.Stoller Fredricka. 2011. Teaching and Researching, Reading. Britain: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group
Harmer,J.2007. The Practice English Language Teaching. New York: Longman
King, F.J, Goodson,L,& Rohani, F, 1998. Higher Order Thinking Skills.A publication of the educational program
Masduki.Subadriah, M.R.Irawan, D.Y. Prihantoro, A. 2013. “ Level Kognitif
soal-soal pada Buku Teks Matematika dan Pendidikan Matematika FMIPA UNY,ISBN: 978-979-16353-9-4
Montgomery, M, Durant, A, Fabb, N, and Mills,S. 2007.Ways of Reading.New York: Routledge
Muchlis, 2015, “An Analysis of Thinking Order of Reading Comprehension Questions in English Textbook for Young Foresters of Forestry Vocational School of Samarinda”, Jurnal Nalar Pendidikan, Vol.3 No. 1
Munir,S and Nurkamto,J, 2013, “ An Evaluation of Reading Comprehension
Textbooks Taught at the English Education Department of Islamic Higher Education in West Sumatera” journal of language and literature, Vol.7, No.2
Pratiwi Nur, 2014. Higher Order Thinking Skill In Reading Exercise : An
Analysis of Reading Exercises in Pathway to English Textbook for the Eleventh Grade of Senior High School Students”. Thesis from UIN Syarif Hidayatullah, Jakarta.
Patel.M.F. and Jain. M. Praveen. 2008. English Language Teaching. Jaipur: Sunrise Publisher
52
Seif, AA Ahmad, 2012 “Evaluating the Higher Order Thinking Skills in Reading Exercises of English for Palestine Grade 8”. Thesis from the Islamic University Gaza.
Sudarsyah, Asep.2013. Manajemen Implementasi Kurikulum: Sisi Lain Ujian Nasional.http://m.kompasiana.com/post/read/543693/1/sisi-lain-dari-un.html. Diakses online 7 Mei 2015
Zainul, Asmawi and Nasution. 2001. Penilaian Hasil Belajar. Jakarta.
http://www.cala.fsu.edu/files/higher_order_thinking_skills.pdf
http://www.project2061.org/publications/textbook/articles/approach.htm accessed on May 02, 2016
http://www.teachervision.fren.com/curriculumplanning/newteacher/48347.html#i xzz1FYHZ1R1N accessed on April 17, 2016
http://edutechwiki.unige.ch/en/Methodology_tutorial_-_qualitative_data_analysis accessed on may 11 2016
http://www.aect.org/edtech/ed1/40/40-03.html accessed on may 11 2016
http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/1997/nsf97153/chap_4.htm accessed on may 11 2016
BIOGRAPHY
Nurasiah Lubis was born in Muara Parlampungan, on November 07th,
1994 as the eldest daughter in her family. Her beloved father is Syahruddin Lubis
and her beloved mother is Asmina Nasution. She also has one brother and three
sisters, Mardani Lubis, Khairun nisa Lubis, Nur Halimah Lubis and Nur Eliza
Lubis.
Finishing her elementary school in SD Negeri 142682 (2006), she
continued her study in SMP Negeri 3 Batang Natal (2009), and SMAN 1 Batang
Natal (2012).after graduating from SMAN 1 Batang Natal, she continued her
study in English Education Study Program, Faculty of Language and Arts, State
University of Medan. By patience, best pray from her parents, support from her
family and friends, she can finish her study in 2016. She graduated from State
