THE TEACHING OF HIGHER ORDER THINKING SKILLS (HOTS) IN MALAYSIAN SCHOOLS: POLICY AND PRACTICES

Abstract

As a move towards educational transformation, the Ministry of Education (MOE) has established a policy on the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) and its practices are being emphasized throughout Malaysian education system. However, due to a lack of meta-analysis, the types of pedagogical practices used by teachers in enhancing students’ HOTS in the local context is unclear. This study used a meta-analytical approach to fill in the gap in literature on the pedagogical practices of HOTS in Malaysian classrooms. A total of 32 empirical studies were included in the analyses. Therefore, this paper aims at synthesising the pedagogical practices of teaching HOTS among Malaysian teachers. The findings offered a synthesis of HOTS pedagogical practices employed by teachers in Malaysian schools, which could be categorised as practices that promote and practices that inhibit the teaching of HOTS. The synthesis revealed that some practices that promoted the teaching of HOTS were brainstorming, constructivist learning, inquiry teaching, thinking map, and problem-based learning whereas some practices that inhibited the teaching of HOTS were teacher-centered learning and teaching lower-order thinking skills.