1.0 Introduction 1.1 Introduction. According to Nurazwa (2015), a total of 150 schools participated in the TIMSS and PISA tests. According to her, the 150 schools involved in the TIMSS test consisted of form two students, while the PISA consisted of form three students, As a result of the TIMSS and PISA studies, we can see that the achievement of the exams in mathematics subjects in form 2 and form 3 is declining. Thus, the achievement of Malaysia in the TIMSS and PISA programs will not increase if the result of the students from the 150 schools is declining. Meanwhile, according to TheStar newspaper, the "Program for International Student Assessment" (PISA) revealed that Malaysia's position in 2009 was 57th out of 74 countries participating in the program. In addition, Malaysia's seat in 2012 was 52nd out of 65 countries involved (Kang Soon Chen, 2013). As a result of the PISA study, it shows that Malaysia's position in mathematics subjects has not increased at all and is decreasing. According to Zul & Anas (2013), the 2011 "Trends in Mathematics and Science Study" (TIMSS) report revealed that Malaysia's position on mathematics subjects had seen a sharp decline in the fourfold assessment since 1999. In the 2011 TIMSS report, Malaysia's position in the Mathematic subject for 1999 was 16th out of 50 countries that organized by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) (KPM, 2016). Furthermore, Malaysia rose by sixth place, ranking 10th out of 50 countries in 2003, but Malaysia's rankings declined and declined in 2007, Malaysia ranked 20th out of 50 and 26th out of 50 countries involved in 20111.2 Problem’s statements In the TIMSS and PISA studies, most of the students involved failed to get good results in the test. This situation happened because most of the questions given in the TIMSS and PISA tests based on High Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (Afiqah, 2015). Furthermore, according to Jane (2017), in the last Ujian Penilaian Sekolah Rendah (UPSR) in 2017, most of the students were unable to answer the HOTS questions in the mathematic subject. This scene has shown that the HOTS questions are one of the reasons why students scored low in the exam. In addition, the students nowadays are too focused on learning the exami tion's topic that caused them to pay less attention to the HOTS questions because the structure of the HOTS questions are different from the questions that often asked in the public exams where the questions are focused on non-routine questions. 1.3 Purpose, Objectives and Research Question 1.3.1 Purpose The purpose of this research was to identify factors that caused year-four students to fail to answer high order thinking skills (HOTS) questions in mathematic. 1.3.2 Objective The objective of this research is:- 1) Identify the factors that caused the year-four students to fail to answer the high order thinking skills (HOTS) questions in the mathematic subject. 1.3.3. Research Question 1) Why do yearfour students fail to answer the high order thinking skills (HOTS) questions in the mathematic subject?1.4 Research's Conceptual Framework The conceptual frameworks of the research, which are the factors that caused the year-four students fail to answer the high order thinking skills (HOTS) questions in mathematic subject., are as follows: - aoc eet pene the factors that caused the year-four eee an lorder thinking skills (HOTS) quest rae PEs, Pear gi ay ee toca corns Figure 1: The Conceptual Framework of the factors that cause year-four students to fail to answer the high order thinking skills (HOTS) in the mathematic subject. The Conceptual Framework in figure 1 is about identifying the factors that caused year-four students to fail to answer the high order thinking skills (HOTS) questions in the mathematic subject Thus, the dependent variables in this research are the factors that caused year-four students to fail to answer high order thinking skills (HOTS) questions in the mathematic subject which are the peer factor, the student interest factor, factor of students’ understanding about high order thinking skills questions in mathematic and student mastery in the mathematic subject.1.5 Research Scope and Limit. 154 15.2 Research's Scope This research focuses on the reasons why students ‘cannot answer high-level skills questions in mathematics subjects Research's Limit There are some limitations in this research and the problems faced by the researcher. In this research, one of the problems that will occur is the attitude of students who were shy and afraid to cooperate during information sharing during the interview. Furthermore, there are constraints in the selection of time to conduct the studies because school tim very tight with the school schedule and school programs that contained in the school's annual plan called as "Takwim Tahunan Sekolah.” Hence there will be a limited amount of time for the researcher to have an interview session with the students. Due to the dense leaming schedule, the researcher will have a hard time to meet the student at his own expense, as this may interfere with the teaching time of the other teachers. Therefore, itis difficult for the researcher to carry out this research. Lastly, this research can only be done in school because the researcher can only meet the students in school.1.6 The Importance of Research According to Hasnan (2016), research has a specific rational for contributing to the construction of new knowledge. In addition, according to Weber (2015), research can help solve the problems faced in life. In the context of education, this research able to identify problems and causes faced by school students, especially in mathematic subjects. Once the problem has been identified, the researcher will make improvements in teaching and leaming process in the classroom so that students can improve their skills in solving mathematical problems. 1.7 Operational Definitions According to the book titled "Kemahiran Berfikir Aras Tinggi: Aplikasi Di Sekolah terbitan KPM" (2014). High Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) is defined as the ability to apply knowledge, skills, and values in reasoning and reflection to solve problems, make decisions, innovate, and be able to create things. Other than that, based on Bloom's Taxonomy model, there are four levels, namely the third to sixth levels, that need to be used so that students can think critically, These include applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating. Whereas, levels one and two are Low Order Thinking Skills (LOTS), which is to remember and understand, which is the easiest and lowest level (Jaimah, 2015) 4.8Summary In conclusion, the exposure of specific information related to this research, such as purpose, scope, and limitations, and the importance of the research has presented an overview of this research. Therefore, the factors that caused the year-four students to fail to answer the high order thinking skills (HOTS) questions in the mathematic subject need to be given special attention in order to help students improve their mathematics examination results in the future.2.0 Literature Review This chapter discusses the results of previous research related to current research. Besides that, this chapter also describes the model or theory that researchers will use to study this research. Moreover, the researcher will make an explanation and relation the findings to the issues that the researcher wants to study through this literature review. 2.4 Introduction to Case Studies The purpose of this case study is to identify the factors and reasons why students fail to answer the high order thinking skills (HOTS) questions in the mathematic subject. According to Hasimah (2015), in her research, she stated that among the factors that students are unable to answer to high order thinking skills (HOTS) questions is due to the influence of attitude, influence of interest, peer influence, and teacher influence. Besides that, according to Habibah (2004), the main factors for students having problems with mathematics are the student self factor, teacher factor, and the environment factor. Therefore, the researches found that problems stated in there have a significant impact on answering the question of this research. 2.2 Research Theory/Model The first model is the Intrinsic Case Study Model. The Intrinsic Case Study model developed when the researcher wants to understand in depth of a specific case. This model has been chosen is because the researcher has an intrinsic motivation to know the truth behind this research at his, own will. Next, the second model is the Instrumental Case Study Model. This model designed to understand the theory or concept related to the problems. Moreover, this model supports the researcher's understanding of the theory or concept used through the collection of data through this, research Finally, the third model is the Collective Case Study Model, which is a combination of several extensive and in-depth instrumental studies. Subsequently, the model designed to enhance the researcher'sunderstanding of a theory or to build theory from a broader context. This model can also assist the researcher in making connections between the theories used and the generalization of this research. 2.3 Research Findings According to a study by Zanariah (2016), one of the factors that students are unable to answer in math problems is lack of confidence, which is why students often rely on teachers to answer math questions Next, students are passive learners, where they are not actively looking at the relevance of existing knowledge to what they are learning, the relevance of concepts to other concepts, and the relevance of other topics related to Mathematic. Besides that, students have memory problems; students may not memorize times table and formulas that they learn to use in solving problems process. Later, students will have problems with concentrating on teaching and learning sessions, Finally, students lack critical and creative thinking skills. Furthermore, Norhani, Hamidah, Zainab & Aminah (2005) stated that among the factors that are not able to answer the high order thinking skills, (HOTS) questions is due to the student's leaming technique factor, which is related to student's time management. The second factor is the attitude of students factor who take it easy and show less excited in learning math. Then, social factors, interests and motivations, where students are less likely to ask their teachers and peers if they have problems with the questions. Apart from that, the students who lack of interest in leaning the mathematic subject are also one of the factors of why students fail to answer the high order thinking skills (HOTS) questions as well as their lack of motivation to work hard in improving their skills in mathematic. Finally, the student self-confidence factor depends on the teacher's answer, and they do not feel confident about answering the question by themselves, Finally, according to Hanim & Azuanafzah (2017), three factors prevent students from being able to answer high order thinking skills (HOTS) questions in mathematics subjects. The first factor is the students’ interestin mathematic. Other than that, the attitude of students who do not take matters seriously in the mathematic subject. Finally, the factor of teachers, whose teaching methods are not able to arouse the interest of the students. 2.4 Research focus As a result of the literature review, the researcher found that most of the previous researchers had discussed the factors that led to the factors that caused the students fail to answer the high order thinking skills (HOTS) question which is in line with the objectives of this research: These include student's interest factors, peers factors, student's mastery factors and student's understanding about the high order thinking skills (HOTS) questions. Thus, this section has revealed the focus on this research based on the factors that have been obtained through previous researches. Therefore, the researcher will continue this research by using qualitative methods to achieve the objective of this research.3.0 Methodology The purpose of this research is to identify the factors that caused the year-four students fail to answer high order thinking skills (HOTS) questions in the mathematic subject. Therefore, the researcher will explain the methods that he will use to achieve the objective of this research. Next, the exposure on research framework, sampling, research instrument, research procedure, validity & reliability, data collection and data analysis will be presented in this chapter. 3.1 Research Framework This research is a qualitative type. Therefore, the methods that researchers will use to obtain information are document analysis method, interview and observation. 3.1.1 Document Analysis The researcher does the document analysis by examining the students’ answers in the past exam of year-four mathematic but the researcher most likely to focus on the high order thinking skills (HOTS) questions. Therefore, students who did not or did the wrong answer of the high order thinking skills (HOTS) questions will be selected as the sample in this research. Next, the researcher will prepare two based of high order thinking skills (HOTS) question papers to determine the changes in students’ behaviour in answering the questions given while implementing the observation method. The questions are based on Primary School Standard Curriculum (DSKP) fo Year 4 Mathematic. 3.1.2 Interviews The researcher will interview five selected students to find out the factors that make them unable to answer the high order thinking skills (HOTS) question in the maths question:3.1.3 Observation The researcher will make observations of five students based on the checklist form provided. The checklist is based on the criteria that the researcher set, 3.2 Sampling The sample of this research is five students from a class of year-four, Next, the researcher using purposive sampling. According to Ben Foley (2018), Purposive sampling is a form of non-probabilty sampling in which researchers rely on their own judgment when choosing members of the population to participate in their study. Therefore, the researcher selects five year-four students. The students that will be selected are based on the answer from past exams. Therefore, the students who did not answer or did the wrong answer with the high order thinking skills (HOTS) questions will be selected. 3.3 Research Instrument 3.3.1 Document Analysis Researchers analyze data by examining the students’ answers in the past exam of year-four mathematic but the researcher most likely to focus on the high order thinking skills (HOTS) questions, Moreover, the researcher will prepare two sets of high order thinking skills (HOTS) question papers that contain three and two questions for students to answer during the observation method. 3.3.2 Interviews ‘The researcher will interview five selected students using the interview form that will be provided by the researcher. Next, the questions that will be interviewed are based on the factors thatcaused the students fail to answer high order thinking skills (HOTS) questions in the mathematic subject such as peer factors, student interest factors, factor of students’ understanding of high order thinking skills (HOTS) questions in mathemati and student mastery factors. Then, the data will be collected through the interview with the students in writing form. ‘One of the factors that the researcher will ask the students is the peer factor. The researcher wants to know whether the students’ peers are willing to help them solve the high order thinking skills (HOTS) mathematic question during or after school session, Then, for the factor of interest, the researcher wants to know more about the students’ level of interest in the mathematic subject and their reasons for the answer. Next, the factor of students’ understanding in high order thinking skills (HOTS) questions in mathematic, the researcher want to determine the students’ level of understanding in the mathematic subject by asking the high-level questions from the year-four mathematic textbook with the topic that they have leaned and ask for the student's understanding of the exam questions that they had taken. Finally, for the mastery factor, the researcher tests the pupil's mastery of basic operations in mathematic by asking questions orally. For example, researchers ask students to read the two basic multiplications from times table for elementary school. After receiving responses from the interviews, the researcher will review the data. Then, the researcher incorporates these data into the criteria of the checklist that will be provided. 3.3.3 Observations A checklist that contained the criteria will be provided for each activity that the students will do, The criteria are based on the data obtained from the students’ interviews. This observation aims to determine whether the data obtained have a relation with peer factors, student's interest factors, student's understandingabout the high order thinking skills (HOTS) questions, and student's mastery factors that caused the students fail to answer the high order thinking skills (HOTS) questions in the mathematic subject. The researcher will conduct a double observation session to see how the changes in students’ behaviour, The researcher will provide three questions in writing form for the first observation and two questions in writing form for the second observ n for 30 minutes for each session. The purpose of these sessions is to determine the criteria of the students’ interest through their expression in solving the questions given, Next, the researcher will review the student's answers to make observations on the students’ understanding of the given questions as well as the student's mastery of the topics that they have studied and the mastery in basic operations of mathematical calculations such as addition, subtraction, multiplication and division 3.4 Research Procedures This chapter will outline the action steps that researchers need to take to conduct their systematic review so that the planned objectives can be achieved successfully. For the first step, the researcher will request the permission of the school’s principal to conduct this research on the students. After obtaining the approval from the school's principal, the researcher will begin this research by using three qualitative methods which are document analysis method, interview and observation. 3.4.1 Document Analysis The document analysis method will be carried out to identify problems faced by year-four students in the mathematic subject. In this method, the researcher will review the examination answers of every student from the class that the researcher teaches. Theresearcher will also examine the answers from past exam papers taken by year-four students. After that, the researcher will collect data by selecting five students who scored the lowest in the past examination. Other than that, the students will also be selected by the researcher based on those who not answer or the wrong answer the high order thinking skills (HOTS) questions in the examination that they have taken. Moreover, the researcher will provide two question papers with three and two high order thinking skills (HOTS) questions during the observation method 3.4.2 Interviews After identifying the selected students, the researcher will continue with the interview method. In this method, the researcher provides a set of interview questions that are suitable for the students’ cognitive level. Eight questions will be provided by the researcher to identify the factors related to the objective of this research. All five selected students will be given the same interview questions by the researcher. Before implementing this method, the researcher will verify the validity of the interview questions from the supervisor. This procedure will ensure the interview's questions are suitable for the level of the students cognitive, which easy to understand and answer by the students Next, the researcher will also ensure the reliability of the interview's questions by interviewing the other students as well. It aims to identify the weaknesses of the interview’s content in terms of the level of the question, the level of students’ cognitive, language proficiency, and to make improvements to those weaknesses. 3.4.3 Observation After interviewing all five students, the researcher will continue the research by using the observation method. Thismethod will determine the behaviour of the selected students in answering the high order thinking skills (HOTS) questions that the researcher prepared. To strengthen the results of the interviews between the researcher and the students, the researcher will place several criteria in the observation's checklist form. Two observations will be made by the researcher to determine the changes in participants’ behaviour in answering the ferent high order thinking skills (HOTS) questions. In the first observation, the researcher will observe the five students by giving them a high order thinking skill (HOTS) question paper in class. They answer that question with their classmates. This action is to determine the efforts of these students if they are unable to answer the high order thinking skills (HOTS) question. They will ask a friend for help by replicating the friend's answer or not answering the question based on the criteria that have been set by the researcher. The duration of the exam is 30 minutes. Two days after the first observation, the second observation was made by the researcher by giving two high order thinking skills (HOTS) questions different from the first observation. The researcher will also make observations by following the same criteria used in the first observation and have the same purpose in the firs observation Finally, the time given to students to answer the question is the same as the first observation which is 30 minutes, 3.4.4 Data Analysis ‘Once all three methods have been implemented, the researcher will analyze the findings of the five selected students. The researcher will analyze the information by summarizing it into themes. The themes that have been identified by the researcher at the beginning of the research which are peer's factor, student's interest factors, student's understanding about the high order thinking skills (HOTS) questions, and student'smastery factors. Next, the researcher will encode for each of these factors. The codes are peer factors (PF), student's interest factors (SIF), student's understanding about the high order thinking skills (HOTS) questions (SUHOTS), and student mastery factors (SMF). Finally, the researcher will draw conclusions and suggestions about the improvement and implications of this research in order to help the students to answer the high order thinking skills (HOTS) question and to attract students’ interest in the mathematic subjects. 3.5 Validity and Reliability According to Fiona (2019), reliability and validity are concepts used to evaluate the quality of research. They indicate how well a method, technique or test measures something. Reliability is about the consistency of a measure, and validity is about the accuracy of a measure. Therefore, to ensure the validity of the items that will be using in the interview method, the researcher will ask the supervisor to check the interview's form. The supervisor will check the language of the que In, the content and the questions provided. This procedure will ensure that the students understand and easy to answer. Meanwhile, for the sake of reliability, the researcher will interview other students in order to identify the weaknesses of the interview content and make improvements to the weaknesses. Moreover, to ensure the validity of the observation method, the researcher will ask the supervisor to check the criteria in the checklist form that the researcher will use to evaluate the student which tailored to the objective of this research. Then, to ensure the reliability of the observation. The reliability of the triangulation aspect of the observation period was performed twice to see the difference in pupil behaviour. Next, for the validity of the document analysis method, the researcher will ask the supervisor to check the questions that will be used to test the students which the content of the questions are suitable with the level of the students’ cognitive, whether theinstructions given are clear and more natural for students to understand. Next, in terms of reliability, the researcher will ask the other students to answer the questions to identify the weaknesses in the question and make improvements to the weaknesses. 3.6 Data Collection Researchers use three qualitative methods to collect data, which are document research methods, interviews and observations. Next, the implementation of case studies to collect data will be more clearly by displaying through the Gantt Chart, The Gantt chart aims to show the project's timetable. 3.6.1 Document Analysis According to Ridzuan (2014), a document refers to a record of a person's thoughts, feelings, opinions or actions. Next, the record that will be using is the written record. Written records are consist of two categories: printable such as articles, reports and diaries, while the other is non-printable such as recordings, videotapes and pictures. This method is also used to validate the interview and observation data. Moreover, the researcher will prepare a questionnaire to test the students during the observation method in terms of student behaviour in answering the given questions. 3.6.2 Interviews In this research, the researcher will conduct an individual interview method and an open-ended questionnaire. This method is supported by Creswell (2014), who states that individual interviews are a focused and easy-to-collect interviewbecause it takes a short amount of time to get data. Next, he said, the open-ended questionnaire would involve a two-way relationship where the researcher asked a question, while the respondent would answer the question In this research, the researcher will use a structured semi-structured interview which is a meeting in which the interviewer does not strictly follow a formalized list of questions (Alison, 2019). The researcher will ask more open-ended questions, allowing for a discussion with the students rather than a straightforward question and answer format, Furthermore, the researcher is also free to ask questions if the answers given by the students are attractive to the researcher to ask more deeply. 3.6.3 Observation The observations are meant to identify the students who meet the criteria. Moreover, the researcher will make the observ ns in terms of time, place of observation and condition of the place. Moreover, the researcher has conducted a structured observation by providing a checklist form based on the factors that the student has given, and the criteria that have been set by the researcher. According to Creswell (2014), in a qualitative study, researchers can provide assessment items according to their own needs. 3.7 Data Analysis Once the data has been collected, the researcher will begin the process of analyzing the data. This process of analysis is based on data collected from three qualitative methods which are document research method, interview method and observation method. The researcher will analyze the data from the document analysis method by comparing the student answer in high order thinking skills (HOTS) questions with the other math examination question that the year-four students had taken before. Next, the interview method will be analyzed using the content analysis method. According to the University of Georgia (2012),content analysis defined as a research technique used to make replicable and valid inferences by interpreting and coding textual material. This means that the recorded interviews will be transcribed and through the transcription, then the researcher coded the results of the interview with the students according to the identified the factors’ theme. Then, the data obtained through the observational data collection using the checklist form will be analyzed. In this section, the researcher will see whether the data obtained from the researcher's, interview with the students are in line with the criteria that contained in the checklist form. Then, the researcher analyzes the data by classifying them according to the factors that have been identified in Table 1. Therefore, by analyzing this data, the researcher can identify the factors that make students fail to answer high order thinking skills (HOTS) questions in the mathematic subject. Factors ‘Students Information Table 1: Information obtained, analyzed and categorized according to the identified themesReference. Afiqah Abdullah, (2015), KBAT dalam TIMSS dan PISA. Shah Alam: Press Sdn. Bhd. Ahmad, Abid. (2014). Tingkah laku murid dalam bilik darjah. Kajian Tindakan, 7(10). 15— 19. Alison Doyle. (2019). What Is a Semi-Structured Interview?, Retrieved from https://www.thebalancecareers.com/what-is-a-semi-structured-interview- 2061632 Ben Foley. (2018). Purposive Sampling 101. 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