HOTS: THE FREQUENTLY MISINTERPRETED TERM (By: Muchlas Samani)

I don’t remember when the term HOTS (High Order Thinking Skills) began its popularity among teachers and educators in Indonesia. Clearly, it has become an important vocabulary in the world of education. Teachers are demanded to develop HOTS for their students. It is said that AKM (Minimum Competence Assessment) is soon to be substituted UN (National Exam) which is prepared based on HOTS. 

Unfortunately, there is a considerable number of teachers who have not comprehended the concept of HOTS properly. When they enrolled in the capacity sharing for supervisor candidates and tutor teachers who later escort the students of Elementary School Teacher Professional Education (PPG-PGSD) held by the Ministry of Education and Culture along with Tanoto Foundation, some of whom admitted that they have not been able to grasp the concept of HOTS, thus cluelessness was clouding over them to apply it to their students.

HOTS is not a sole term, but it generally is interpreted as high-leveled thinking competence which covers the following categories: critical, creative, reflective, and problem-solving. Those were mentioned in two Cs at the beginning of 4-C namely critical thinking and creativity. There is also a shorter definition, which is solving problems creatively.

Various definitions above are in fact related to each other. To be able to solve problems creatively, one must require critical and reflective thinking to comprehend the problems to be solved. Meanwhile, to understand creative solving, high creativity is needed. If it is associated with Bloom’s taxonomy (although not matching properly), thinking creatively and reflectively is parallel to the level of analysis-synthesis and evaluation. Several experts mark it as a part of metacognition, while creative thinking is parallel to creating in Bloom’s taxonomy. This is why some people mention three levels at the beginning of the taxonomy (remembering, understanding, implementing) which is called LOTS (low-order thinking skill), as the three levels above them (analysis-synthesis, evaluation, creating) are included in HOTS.

Their perplexity occurred once again when the participants were asked to prepare a lesson plan for the first graders of elementary school to enhance HOTS. A senior first-grader teacher claimed that it was impossible. He/She argued that they were still in the concrete thinking stage. It seems like this teacher tried associating it with Piaget’s theory, of cognitive development, therefore the students are not able to do abstract thinking.

Another participant presented his/her lesson plan by showing the grouped toothbrushes. One group consisted of three and the other one consisted of two. Then, the first graders were asked to fill out the equality in their worksheet. From that, another participant remarked that elementary students are not yet able to read and write, how come they were asked to fill out the worksheet. By that claim, it was justified by a lot of participants, especially teachers.

I tried to mediate by saying, what if that question is delivered orally? So, the first graders are shown a picture, or the teacher brings real toothbrushes and then illustrates them like the picture. Then, the teacher asks orally, which has the most toothbrush? Can the students answer? Almost all of them confirmed they can. It means that the first graders are able to compare. When I asked, which Bloom’s taxonomy defines this comparison? Evaluation, they answered. Thus, the first graders are also able to evaluate, which means they can have HOTS. Since then, the participants understood. So, they remarked that if the first graders cannot answer, it is influenced by the image that they are still unable to read.

When the participants were busy with the discussion, I attempted to show a picture of the schoolyard and two students running from one corner to the other corner of the field. Let’s say Budi was running along the edge of the field while Tomi was running across it. Can two graders guess which one would arrive faster? The participants simultaneously answered they can. And I asked again how the students can conclude that Tomi arrived faster? One participant who is a second grader teacher stated, the students viewed that the track Tomi ran was shorter, thus he would be faster. The second graders are able to compare because the picture could be seen clearly. Isn’t that comparing? Isn’t that basically evaluating? It means the second graders have gotten into the evaluation level according to Bloom. Henceforth we can draw a conclusion that the first and second graders of elementary school have acquired HOTS because they are able to do an evaluation. Then, during the break time, several participants were discussing whether HOTS questions are associated with difficult questions in exams. I proposed a question to them if the third graders were asked to solve this question item:

                                           1/7 + 0.42 X 2/6 = ………………………………

Is it easy for them to do it? The participants would reply “Difficult, Sir.”. I asked once again if it is associated with Bloom’s taxonomy, what kind of category is it? Their answer was application because it only applied the principle of addition and multiplication. I continued asking whether it was categorized as HOTS or LOTS. They replied, LOTS. So, if there is a difficult question item, it is included in LOTS. Meanwhile, the previous question which could be answered easily by the first graders is categorized as HOTS. The conclusion was drawn that not all HOTS questions are difficult and not all LOTS questions are easy. In other words, the level of thinking is not always in line with the difficulty of the question item. 

Then, how do we easily comprehend HOTS? HOTS generally associates two concepts or phenomena. In the examples above, students were comparing two phenomena, namely the number of toothbrushes and running distance. Comparing two concepts is like questioning why grass does not grow under trees? It requires sunlight for the grass to grow well, meanwhile, sunlight cannot penetrate the thick-grown trees. Another example is why the water in a big river turns brown during heavy rain? Its water is usually originated from mountains or hills. The rainwater brings soil which causes the river to turn brown.