Science Teachers’ Understanding of Higher Order Thinking Skills

Abstract

For students to become critical, creative, and engage in problem solving, teachers’ role is critical. A teacher is required to implement higher order thinking skills activities in the class. The study focused on science teachers’ understanding of higher order thinking skills (HOTS) in teaching and learning science. A mixed methods approach was adopted for the study. Data collected from survey questionnaires, classroom observation, interviews and documents analysis were analysed based on descriptive statistics and thematic analysis. A total of 14 teachers participated in the study. The findings showed that most of the science teachers have clear understanding of HOTS. Further, implementation of HOTs requires activity-based teaching approach but approaches used were mostly lecture method with a few group discussion and clarification of doubts in teaching science. Some of the challenges teachers face in implementing HOTS were time constraint, language barrier and terminologies used in science textbooks currently in use in schools. The study recommends teachers to use appropriate activity-based teaching approach to implement HOTs activities. It is also recommended to carry out a study to find the correlation between HOTS and academic performance of students.