Preparing Competitive Students

KOMPAS/HENDRA A SETYAWAN

A woman helps Deva Meiza Pradana (center) take the Paper and Pencil National Examination (UNKP) on April 23, 2019 at the YKK junior high school for children with disabilities (SMPLB) in Pacitan, East Java. Deva, who uses his feet to write, and 13 other special needs students completed their math exams on the second day of the UNPK.

A learning system based on higher-order thinking skills (HOTS) is good to transform students into creative and innovative people and prepare them for the challenges of the 21st century.

JAKARTA, KOMPAS — The government is increasing its efforts to implement a learning system based on higher-order thinking skills (HOTS) to produce highly competitive students. After the implementation of the 2013 Curriculum, highly accommodative to the development of reasoning capacity, up to 10 percent of problem questions in national exams in the past two years have been based on HOTS.

Implementing a learning system based on HOTS is deemed important, as various studies show that Indonesia has a low quality of education. National exam scores at the levels of junior high school, high school and vocational school remain low, with a downward trend.

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) shows that basic skills of 15-year-old Indonesian students in science, reading and mathematics remain low. In PISA 2015, Indonesian students scored 403 in science, 397 in reading and 386 in math, below the average scores for Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries of 493, 493 and 490, respectively. In the ASEAN, Indonesia ranks below Thailand and Vietnam. A 2016 Indonesian Students’ Competence Assessment (AKSI) organized by the Education and Culture Ministry’s education assessment center also showed that students’ capacity in math, science and reading remained low. The 2016 AKSI results showed that 77.13 percent of local students had lacking math skills, 73.61 percent had lacking science skills and 46.83 percent had lacking reading skills.

“In general, learning at school mostly involves the ability to know or to memorize,” Sebelas Maret University (UNS) rector and University Entrance Exam Institution (LTMPT) head Ravik Karsidi said on Monday (29/4/2019).

Consequently, students have difficulties in understanding HOTS problems that require analytical capacity. For instance, SMA 6 South Tambun state high school student Bernadus Valentin, 18, said he had difficulty working on national exam problems that required higher-thinking skills. He said he was used to solving problems using formulas he memorized.

“Think about this: One of the questions requires me to find out how many possible passwords there are for Zaky’s e-mail account. So, Zaky wants to create an e-mail account, but I’m the one having the headache. Another question requires me to count the number of bricks needed to create a triangular gate. It’s difficult!” he said.

SMA 48 Jakarta state high school student Nadhifa Marsaa, 17, echoed Bernadus’ complaints. She said she had not learned how to solve national exam problems at school.

“Actually, the answers and formulas used are the same. However, the wording and the cases used [in national exam questions] make them difficult,” Nadhifa said, adding that she had learned more about theories and calculations at school.

Assessment system designer Rahmawati at the Education and Culture Ministry’s education assessment center said the ministry had 20 sets of math problems for the national exam. In this year’s exam, each set has one brief story problem. In general, only 22 percent of students can answer such problems in line with concepts and procedures.

Easily adaptable

The ministry’s curriculum center head Awaluddin Tjalla said the design of the 2013 curriculum was highly accommodative toward reasoning development. Its content was flexible and easily adaptable in line with local conditions teachers face in different learning environments. This should have made learning more relevant to students’ daily life.

Learning based on HOTS requires teachers’ capacity to establish certain concepts in delivering study materials. On the other hand, the ministry’s research and development body head, Totok Suprayitno, said it also required good literacy on the part of students.

Sumedang High School Math Teachers Association (MGMP) head Titin Suryati Sumadewi said in Sumedang, West Java, many teachers had yet to implement HOTS in teaching. Teachers are required to be able to formulate contextual mathematical problems that are relevant to daily life.

SMAK Penabur Jakarta math teacher Theresia Ambar said that, for teachers to implement HOTS, students were required to understand basic formulas in use. Meanwhile, students were used to memorizing formulas and only inputting the numbers to be calculated.

“If the problem is changed a little bit, so it requires reasoning capacity to solve, students will get confused,” she said. (TAN/PDS/DNE/SEM)