READING QUESTIONS IN ENGLISH TEXTBOOK BASED ON
BLOOM’S TAXONOMY
A THESIS
As the Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Pendidikan
By:
ROY INDRA PRATAMA SITUMORANG
Register Number: 2123321071
ENGLISH AND LITERATURE DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND ARTS
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degree of Sarjana Pendidikan at English and Literatures Department of Faculty of
Languages and Arts, State University of Medan.
During the completing of this thesis, the writer is indebted in a lot of
helpful assistances, constructive comments, suggestions, moral supports, and
guidance academic from many great people. Therefore, the writer would like to
express his gratitude and special thanks to:
1. Prof. Dr. Syawal Gultom, M.Pd., the Rector of State University of Academic Advisor, for many worthy suggestions, advices, constructive
comments, guidance to the completion of this Thesis
5. Anggraini T.Saragih S.Pd., M.Hum., his second Thesis Advisor, for her comments and guidance to complete this Thesis.
6. Drs. Johan Sinulingga, M.Pd., and also Johannes Jefria Gultom, S.Pd., M.Hum.his examiners for suggestions, commands and advices to complete this Thesis.
7. Eis Sri Wahyuningsih, M.Pd., as the Administration Staff of English Department, for her attention, assistance, and information in completing
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8. Drs. Banu Susanto, M.Si., the Head of Administration Staff of Digital Library for the coorperation to complete this Thesis.
9. His beloved parents, Alm. Riccart Effendi Situmorang and Rumondang Simamora, who always bring him in their prayer
10.Rini Indah Sari Situmorang and Renata Anggreani Situmorang, his lovely sisters, for the prayer and love
11.His family in One Heart and PLC Community, Jehovah, including Beny,
Immanuel, Niko, Fandy, Jokoc, Haren, Anto Medan, Tyo, Valdy Copong, Iegi, Rizky Cin, Rahmat, Michael, Ucha, Ade, Nia, Anggi. 12.His best friend, Muhammad Agung Fadli
13.His class-mates in Extension C 2012, including Lusty, Nova, Swarni, Licha, Supra, Rizky, Amna, Steven, Fani, Voni, Maria, Ihsan, Endang and others.
14.His friends in PPLT 2015 including Arisa, Rindu, Cihur, Raka, Herbin, Aida, Wissel and others
Finally, with the name of Jesus Christ, the writer says that he is in love to
be a part of everybody’s. Love and bless of his Father, Jesus Christ, will always hold and accompany people who are being a part of the writer’s life.
Medan, Februari 2017
The writer
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CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION ... 1
A. The Background of Study ... 1
A. Theoretical Framework... 9
1. Textbook ... 9
C. Conceptual Framework... 24
CHAPTER III. RESEARCH METHOD ... 25
A. Research Design ... 25
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C. Techniques of Collecting Data ... 25
D. Techniques of Data Analysis ... 26
CHAPTER IV. DATA AND DATA ANALYSIS ………. 27
A. Data……….. 27
B. Data Analysis……… 28
C. Research Findings………. .. 35
D. Discussions……….. 36
CHAPTER V. CONCLUSIONS AND SUGESTIONS……… . 39
A. Conclusions………. 39
B. Suggestions……….. 40
REFERENCES ... 41
APPENDICES……… .. 43
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LIST OF TABLES
1.1 Cognitive Dimension Distribution in the workbook can do 2 ... 4
1.2 Cognitive Dimension Distribution in the three level books ... 5
2.1 The verbs listed linked with each level of thinking ... 18
2.2 Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy key words, model questions & instructional strategies of each cognitive domain. ... 20
3.1 Data Analysis Table of Cognitive Dimension of Revised Bloom Taxonomy ... 26
4.1 Reading Questions in the Contextual Teaching and Learning (Fourth Edition) Textbook ... 28
4.2 The Distribution of Remembering Questions in the Textbook ... 29
4.3 The Distribution of Understanding Questions in the Textbook ... 30
4.4 The Distribution of Applying Questions in the Textbook ... 31
4.5 The Distribution of Analyzing Questions in the Textbook ... 32
4.6 The Distribution of Evaluating Questions in the Textbook ... 32
4.7 The Distribution of Creating Questions in the Textbook ... 33
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LIST OF FIGURES
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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
A. The Background of Study
English has become the primary language of communication. It is spoken by
millions of people all over the world. English has become the dominant language
in many fields of activity such as industry, military, business, tourism,
transportation, sports, international relation etc. In Indonesia, English is adopted
as the foreign language. It involves into education curriculum that every school
runs. It becomes a local content in Elementary School, a compulsory subject in
Junior and Senior High School and a complementary subject of the higher
education institution. Even, when someone wants to find a job English is
important one to get the job. This is because of the situation we are facing now;
globalization era, which is very competitive.
English textbook which is one of the main instructional materials covers
all macro skills including reading. The textbook delivers reading materials
through kinds of reading texts and equips them with reading questions that aim at
checking students’ understanding toward the texts. Considering the importance of
both reading questions and English textbook in a process of teaching and learning
reading English textbooks are usually full of questions that come either at the
beginning or at the end of each section, lesson or chapter; unfortunately however,
research has shown that most textbooks do not contain materials, nor do they
include questions that require critical thinking and meta-cognitive processes
(Collins, Brown, & Newman, 1989). Most textbooks questions, as research
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indicates, emphasize the lower-order cognitive levels (Cotton, 1991; Ighbaria,
2013; Riazi & Mosalaejad, 2010). Accordingly, the cognitive levels of the
textbook questions should be one of basic criteria to be used to evaluate
textbooks. A good English textbook is easy to read, easy to understand, and easy
to comprehend by students.
Questions lead students to the comprehension. Day and Jeong-suk Park
(2005) state that well designed questions help students interact with the text,
create and construct meaning and begin to think critically and intelligently. The
researcher feels that questions are one of the important aspects in developing
thinking among students through textbooks. Teachers must teach their students
how to think and how to use higher order thinking processes. Therefore, they can
assume that textbooks that have the objective of helping their students must also
have these same objectives. The researcher therefore sees fit to take this aspect
and analyze the book and see how much it contributes to the area of developing
thinking among students, and to what extent it leads them from a situation of
being students who merely memorize material to being students with an ability to
analyze, synthesize, and evaluate.
Bull and Andre (1973, 1979) claim that questions direct the thinking process
towards one of the following objectives:
(1) Recalling previously taught material.
(2) Examining new material with the purpose of organizing it and benefiting from
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(3) Drawing a connection between old and new learning material by means of
mental processes that students operate (evaluation).
Questions are extremely important for examining students’ understanding of the
learning material, and can be used to measure the level of thinking among
students. Questions are considered a means of leading students’ thinking. This
method was used by Socrates in the course of his philosophical dialogues (Mar’i
et al., 1993).
Bloom’s Taxonomy is widely used as an educational planning tool and so
does Indonesia. The taxonomy can be helpful as teachers develop assessment by
matching course learning objectives at any given level mastery (Forehand,
2005:1). Bloom classifies educational goals and objectives, which resulted in
three learning categories or domains and the taxonomy of categories of thinking.
Each of the three categories requires learners to use different sets of mental
processing to achieve stated outcomes within a learning situation. Those three
domains are cognitive, affective and psychomotor. The domain which is the most
central to the test development is cognitive domain. It is the domain in which
most of the work in curriculum development has taken place and where the
clearest definitions of objectives are to be found phrased as descriptions of student
behavior (Bloom, 1956:7). The cognitive domain includes those objectives which
deal with the recall or recognition of knowledge and the development of
intellectual abilities and skills for each level of education such as elementary
school up to college which is divided into 6 levels; remembering, understanding,
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So, what teachers are classifying is the intended behavior of students, the
ways in which individuals are to act, think, or feel as the result of participating in
some units of instructions. The spread of proportion for each level of education
based on Bloom’s Taxonomy is surely different based on the guidance for
assessment which is regulated by the Ministry of Education and Culture
(2014:48). For Junior High School itself the proportion is remembering -
understanding 20%, applying-analyzing 55%, evaluating 15%, and creating 10%.
Therefore, teachers have to pay attention of this regulation.
Based on the data that researcher got from Analysis of English Workbook
for SMP/MTS by Using Revised Bloom Taxonomy by Pratiwi Nana (2014) in her
thesis proposal show that the result of her thesis :
Table 1.1 Cognitive Dimension Distribution in the workbook can do 2
No Cognitive Dimension Level Frequencies Percentage 1.
Then, the data from The Taxonomy of Thinking in Reading Questions in Look Ahead An
English Course For Senior High School Level , , & by Panjaitan Beny (2017) shown
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Those data shown that the result from those researches is not appropriate with all
cognitive domain in Bloom’s Taxonomy. The proportions of those result by
classifying educational goals, objectives, and, most recently, standards. It provides
an organizational structure that gives a commonly understood meaning to
objectives classified in one of its categories, thereby enhancing communication.
The original Taxonomy consisted of six categories, nearly all with subcategories.
They were arranged in a cumulative hierarchical framework; achievement of the
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original Taxonomy volume emphasized the assessment of learning with many
examples of test items (largely multiple choices) provided for each category.
Revision of the original Taxonomy is a two-dimensional framework:
Knowledge and Cognitive Processes. The former most resembles the
subcategories of the original Knowledge category. The latter resembles the six
categories of the original Taxonomy with the Knowledge category named
Remember, the Comprehension category named Understand, Synthesis renamed
Create and made the top category, and the remaining categories changed to their
verb forms: Apply, Analyze, and Evaluate. They are arranged in a hierarchical
structure, but not as rigidly as in the original Taxonomy.
Considering expectation and facts above shown that, this study is possible
to do because analyzing of the reading questions in English textbook can be the
orientation to the researcher of textbook to create the good Textbook based on
Bloom’s Taxonomy. This study will prove that the reading questions in English
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B. The Problems of the Study
Based on the background above, the problems of study were formulated as
follow:
1. What levels in cognitive domain based on Bloom’s Taxonomy are applied
in the reading questions in the Contextual Teaching and Learning (Fourth
Edition) Textbook?
2. Is the distribution of cognitive domain of Bloom’s Taxonomy in reading
questions in the Contextual Teaching and Learning (Fourth Edition)
Textbook appropriate with the regulation by Ministry of Education and
Culture?
C. The Objectives of the Study
This study has objectives to answer the problems of study above. The
objectives of study tried to find out:
1. The application of the cognitive domain of Bloom’s Taxonomy into
reading questions in the Contextual Teaching and Learning (Fourth
Edition) Textbook.
2. The distribution of cognitive domain of Bloom’s Taxonomy in reading
questions in the Contextual Teaching and Learning (Fourth Edition)
Textbook appropriate with the regulation by Ministry of Education and
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D. The Scope of the Study
This study was limited on reading questions in the Contextual Teaching
and Learning (Fourth Edition) textbook which applied the cognitive domain of
Bloom’s Taxonomy.
E. The Significances of the Study
Findings of this study were expected to provide information which may
have theoretical as well as practical values or significances.
Theoretically, the findings of the study later added some new theories and
information in selecting the appropriate English textbook. Meanwhile practically,
the findings become source of reference for the English teachers especially in
Senior High School in their attempts for selecting the appropriate English
textbook.
The findings were also expected to pose challenges to authors and
publishers to design better English textbook with the good forms of questions
based on Bloom’s taxonomy inside. Finally, the findings of this study can be used
by other researchers who want to analyze the Reading questions based on
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REFERENCES
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Anggraeni, Anggi. (2013). The A alysis of Readi g Questio s Based o Revised Bloo ’s
Taxonomy in English Textbooks for Senior High Schools Grade X. Thesis. English Department, Faculty of Letters, State University of Malang : Malang.
Ary, Jacobs, and Sorensen, 2010.introduction to research in education. Canada: Wadswort
Biber, D., 2006. University language : A Corpus-Based Study of Spoken and Written registers. Amsterdam : John Benjamin B.V..
Browers, Rogers and CJ. Brumfit.(eds.).,1980. Applied Linguistics and English Language Teaching .London: MacMillian Publishers.
Collins, A., Brown, J. S., & Newman, S. E. (1989). Cognitive apprenticeship: Teaching the crafts of reading, writing, and mathematics. In L. B. Resnick (Ed.), Knowing, learning and Instruction: Essays in honour of Robert Gla-ser (pp. 453-494). Hillsdale, NJ: LEA.
Dalton, J. & Smith, D., (1986). Extending Children’s Special Abilities: Strategies for primary classrooms (pp. 36-37).
Forehand, Mary. 2005. Bloom’s Taxonomy: Original and Revised. USA: Unversity of Georgia
Guzzeti, B.J. 2002. Literacy in America: An Ensyclopedia of History, Theory and Practice : Vol.1. California:ABC-CLIO
Day, Richard R and Jeong-suk Park. 2005. Developing Reading Comprehension Questions. (Online), (http://nflrc.hawaii.edu/rfl), accessed on May 30, 2016
Harmer, Jeremy.1983. The Practice of Language Teaching. London : Longman Group.
Huitt, W. 2011. Bloom et al.'s taxonomy of the cognitive domain. Educational Psychology Interactive. Valdosta, GA: Valdosta State University
Krathwohl, David R. 2002. A Revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy: An Overview. Journal
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Mar’i, T., Quasmi, R., Alawni, Sh., Salameh, K., & Khalid, Y. (1993). General
teaching and training methods. Jordan, Amman: The Open University of Jerusalem.
PratiwiNur, 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 ftom UIN SyarifHidayatullah, Jakarta.
Riazi, A., & Mosalanejad, N. (2010). Evaluation of learning objectives in Iranian High-School and pre-university English Textbooks using Bloom’s Taxonomy. The Electronic Journal for English as aSecond Language, 13(4), 1-16. Retrieved from http://www.tesl ej.org/wordpress/issues/volume13/ej52/ ej52a5/
