Analysis of senior school certificate examination chemistry questions for higher-order cognitive skills.
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Date
2015
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Publisher
Faculty of Education, Near East University, Cyprus, and Cyprus Educational Sciences Association
Abstract
Assessment as classroom activities is a fundamental process required to determine the extent to which
intended learning outcomes has been achieved. Whatever form of assessment is employed to measure
students’ learning, they should include tasks that are authentic, relevant and approximate skills students
will need in real-life situations. These skills are well accentuated in the advocacy of the current reforms in
science education to develop students’ higher-order cognitive skills (HOCS) through question-asking,
critical thinking and problem solving. Therefore, this research analyzes chemistry questions of senior
school certificate examination conducted by the National Examination Council (NECO) within the
framework of Bloom’s revised taxonomy of cognitive objectives. The source of data consisted of 257
questions drawn from 5 years examination, from 2010 – 2014. The results from this research indicated
that about 80% and 44% of the questions require lower-order cognitive skills (LOCS) and factual
knowledge respectively. The results further revealed that there was no question in the evaluate category
of the HOCS, and none of the questions required students to apply metacognitive knowledge. The
research concludes that the chemistry questions were not as cognitively demanding as they should be,
and it is recommended that, examination should ensure that examination questions reflect the dual
perspective of the Bloom’s revised taxonomy of cognitive process skills and the knowledge dimensions.
Description
The paper presents a research report in which an analysis of senior school certificate examination chemistry
questions for higher-order cognitive skills was carried out.
Keywords
Higher-order cognitive skills, Bloom’s revised taxonomy, cognitive process skills, knowledge dimension, chemistry questions
Citation
Upahi, J. E., Issa, G. B., & Oyelekan, O. S. (2015). Analysis of senior school certificate examination chemistry questions for higher-order cognitive skills. Cypriot Journal of Educational Sciences, 10(3), 218-227. Published by the Faculty of Education, Near East University, Cyprus, and Cyprus Educational Sciences Association. Available online at http://www.world-education-center.org/index.php/cjes/article/view/1_4/pdf_406