Higher order thinking skill consists of the three top ends of Bloom’s taxonomy, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. However, in this study, the writer uses the
revised edition of Bloom’s taxonomy so we turn the skills to analyze, evaluate, and create. Further, the higher order thinking skill is related with the scientific
approaches in the 2013 curriculum; observing, questioning, associating, experimenting, and networking, because those approaches are also related with the
problem solving and critical thinking skill which belong to the higher order thinking skill.
Higher order thinking is also useful for creating meaningful learning in the teaching and learning process because it gives broader vision of learning that includes
not only acquiring knowledge but also being able to use the knowledge in a variety of new situations in the
students’ everyday life. It enables the students not only to remember and understand the knowledge or information they got but also to use the
knowledge in increasingly more complex way. Consequently, the writer thinks that an analysis of the higher order thinking
skill of the reading exercises in the Pathway to English textbook for the eleventh grade of senior high school students is important because it could help and support
the students in improving their ability in the higher order thinking skill which is related with the 2013 curriculum.
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CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
A. The Object of the Study
The object of the study is the reading comprehension exercise in the Pathway to English textbook for the 11
th
grade of senior high school students that come after every reading text. The reading exercise is limited only on the essay
question that are mostly preceded by WH-word question like what, who, when, where, why, and how.
B. The Research Method
In this research, the writer uses the content analysis method because the writer analyzed the content of the textbook, particularly the reading
comprehension exercises in the Pathway to English textbook for the 11
th
grade of senior high school students.
Ary states that, “Content or document analysis is a research method applied to written or visual materials for the purpose of
identifying specified characteristics of the material. The materials analyzed can be textbooks, newspapers, web pages, speeches, television programs, advertisements,
musical compositions, or any of a host of other types of documents. ”
1
Furthermore, the data collected are qualitative data organized as the questions of the essay reading exercises which are collected from Pathway to
English textbook. In addition, the writer employs a very simple statistical calculation to determine th
e distribution of each level of Bloom’s taxonomy, particularly the higher order thinking level, and interprets the data qualitatively.
1
Donald Ary et.al, Introduction to Research in Education, Belmont: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2010, 8
th
Ed., p.457
C. The Data Source
There are 2 data sources that the writer used in this study. Those 2 data sources are Pathway to English textbook and the analysis card. Those data
sources are used for collecting and analyzing the data to find the result of the study. The explanation of those two data sources are as follow:
1. Pathway to English textbook
The first and the main data source of the study is the Pathway to English textbook which is used for the 11
th
grade of senior high school students. This textbook is used for collecting the reading exercises,
particularly the essay questions, and checking the distribution of the higher order thinking skill in that textbook based on the six cognitive
domains of the revised edition of Bloom’s taxonomy.
2. The Analysis Card
The second source is the analysis card See Appendix 1. The analysis card is used as a reference to decide what kind of cognitive domains
contained in each essay reading question. The analysis card is created by combining and collecting the understanding about six levels of cognitive
domain from the revised edition of Bloom’s taxonomy along with the
example of the reading questions from various references that the writer got from the books and the journals.
D. The Techniques of Data Collecting
In this study, the writer used the checklist table See Appendix 2 in collecting the data. The writer collects and lists all of the essay question of the
reading exercises that come after every reading text. The writer divided all the reading exercises based on the chapter in the textbook.
The checklist table is used to put all of the essay questions from the reading exercises. In the checklist table, the writer also writes the 6 cognitive domains in
order to check the distribution of every reading question based on those 6 cognitive domains.
