Student’s Perceived Level and Teachers’ Teaching Strategies of Higher Order Thinking Skills; A Study on Higher Educational Institutions in Thailand

Abstract

Higher order thinking skills (HOTS) has portrayed immense industry demand and the major goal of educational institution in imparting education is to inculcate higher order thinking skills. This compiles and mandate the institutions and instructor to develop the higher order thinking skills among students in order to prepare them for effective performance and meet the employers’ expectations (Heong at all,2011). Role of teaching strategies plays vital role in such inculcation where students can analyze, interpret, reason out, synthesize, evaluate and create. The current study signifies the perceptual understanding of higher order thinking skills of the graduate passing through the higher educational institutions in Thailand. The study also contributes to the literature with bridging the conceptual gap with examining the relationship between Teachers’ professional components with teaching strategy of higher order thinking skills. The study has explored the perceived level of HOTS among students and its difference between genders. It has also attempted to know the teaching strategies for the inculcation of HOTS being practiced in Thailand and its relations with teachers’ professional component such as designation, educational qualifications, teaching experience, research experience and training and workshop exposure. The research participants into the study are 126 teachers and 659 students. This incorporates survey within various courses of leading International higher educational institutions and universities in Bangkok. Two survey instruments was employed; the first survey was administered on teachers intending to measure the teaching strategies to impart higher order thinking skills and teacher’s professional component. The second; instrument has undertaken the Mazaro’s rubric for specific task and situation to assess the perceived level of higher order thinking skills among students. The finding of the study revealed that students have shown medium level of higher order thinking skills. The teachers are using more knowledge development and application strategies. The teachers’ professional components such as designation, teaching experience and qualification are significantly correlated with strategies used for imparting higher order thinking skills. Based on the observation study has furnished suggested measures and future dimensions of the research.

Key words: Higher order thinking skills, Teaching Strategies, Teacher’s Professional component.