CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION
This chapter was an overview about the research. The researcher presented the
background of the study, research question, objectives and scope of the study, the
significances of the study especially in the field of education, and the previous study
conducted on the same topic.

A. Background

English is taught in Indonesia as a foreign language. It is taught in the

primary and secondary school of Indonesia as a school subject. One of the
reasons is the role of English itself as an international language. The international
language is used as a tool of communication for people who have different
mother languages. The need for international language becomes greater after the
globalization era, which means the relationship among countries becomes
stronger. Globalization influences many sectors, such as the economic, tourism,
education, and others. In the academic field, the academicians can access many
books around the world which are unavailable in Bahasa. The teaching of
English as a response to globalization is a manifestation of the aim of the applied
Indonesian curriculum, the 2013 curriculum, which explicitly emphasizes both
personal and national values in the context of globalization1.

Curriculum 2013, as an applied curriculum in Indonesia, covers three

aspects, as stated in the graduate competence standard, cited in the Regulation of
Education and Culture Ministry number 21 the year 2016. Student’s competence
is divided into three aspects, the competence of attitude, the competence of
knowledge, and the competence of skills. the competence of attitude includes the
spiritual and social attitudes of students.

1
Kathryn Moyle and others, Rapid Review of Curriculum 2013 and Textbooks (Jakarta:
Education Sector Analytical and Capacity Development Partnership (ACDP), 2017).
 Following this rule, English as a subject is responsible to develop all the
three aspects. The goals of the English teaching-learning process include
student’s attitudes, student’s thinking skills, and student’s language skills.
Meanwhile, as the nature of the language classroom, the main purpose of the
EFL classroom is still developing a student’s language skills. English language
skills include speaking, listening, reading skills, and writing. Generally, the
activities in the English classrooms are around those four skills with the addition
of grammatical and vocabulary materials. Students thinking skills are developed
implicitly during the learning process. It is infused in the activities of speaking,
listening, reading, or writing. But, according to Wu (2018), students have more
chances to develop their thinking skills during reading activities. Although the
other three skills also could develop students thinking skills, reading is more
thinking oriented. It will give more help in developing thinking skills2.

In addition, reading is also the first command from Allah for our prophet
Muhammad SAW, as stated in Quran Surah Al- ‘Alaq 1-5:

)٢( ‫ق‬ٍ َ‫ان ِم ْن َعل‬ َ ‫ق اإْل ْن َس‬

َ َ‫) َخل‬١( ‫ق‬ َ َ‫ا ْق َرْأ بَالس ِْم َرب َِّك الّ ِذى َخل‬
َ ‫) َعلَّ َم اِإل ْن‬٤(‫) الَّ ِذى َعلَّ َم ِب ْالقَلَ ِم‬٣( ‫ا ْق َرْأ َو َرب َُّك اَأل ْك َر ُم‬
‫سان َما لَ ْم يَ ْعلَ ْم‬
)٥(

Recite in the name of your Lord who created - Created man from
a clinging substance. Recite, and your Lord is the Most Generous
- Who taught by the pen - Taught man that which he knew not.

2
Yidi Wu, ‘An Investigation of Critical Thinking Manifested in the Questions of EFL
Textbooks for Tertiary-Level English Majors of China’, August, 2018, 72–84
<https://doi.org/10.20448/804.3.2.72.84>.
 In determining the level of thinking skills in the learning objectives,
the taxonomy of cognition is used. It is useful in determining the levels of
learning outcomes. The taxonomy consists of categories in the form of
hierarchy. The first theory on the taxonomy of cognition is developed by
Benjamin Bloom in1956. He classified the cognitive processes into six
sequenced categories from the simplest to the most complex, starting from
knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. All
the categories are arranged in a pyramid, where the base of the pyramid is
knowledge and its top is evaluation. The knowledge stage is a base of the
hierarchy which related to student's ability to recall and recognize the past
information or material. After the students passing the knowledge stage, they
will meet the comprehension stage which is related to the ability to translate,
comprehend, and or interpret information. The comprehension of information
then will be select, transfer, and applied to the problem to solve it. This stage is
named application. Analysis, synthesis, and evaluation are the last three stages.
They define the student's phase of analyzing the different information after they
applied it. Their analysis then will be synthesized in the synthesis stage and
evaluate them in the evaluation stage. Those six hierarchical cognitive
processes are then known as Bloom's Taxonomy.

Furthermore, in 2001, Anderson and Krathwohl continue the study

by Bloom and made three changes, from the name of categories, the sequence
of the categories, and the dimension of the taxonomy. The continuous study by
Anderson and Krathwohl then is named as the revised Bloom’s taxonomy,
changes the name of categories from the form of a noun into the form of a verb.
It is aimed to show the action of the cognitive process. The categories in the
revised taxonomy are remembered, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, and
create. The change is also done in the hierarchy of categories. Create, as the
new name of synthesis becomes the top of the pyramid. This pyramid
represents the student’s cognitive process. Besides, Anderson and Krathwohl
also develop the taxonomy into two dimensions taxonomy. The original
taxonomy was only categorizing the cognitive process, but the revised
taxonomy also determines the dimension of “what students’ study about” or the
object of learning. It is named as knowledge dimension. The knowledge
dimensions include factual, conceptual, procedural, and metacognitive
knowledge.

In English classrooms, during the teaching of language skills or

thinking skills, a textbook is used as one of the learning sources. The textbook
usually comes as a helper for the teacher to compensate for the teacher’s
deficiency because of its complete component. Textbook components such as
materials, texts, and exercises are really helpful for teachers. A similar case,
textbooks also can be a helper for teachers in fostering students thinking skills
through its contents. Moreover, during distance learning, the use of textbooks
becomes higher especially for schools that have many challenges to do video
learning or online conference.

The 2013 curriculum English textbooks have designed to cover

values of attitude, thinking skill, social skill, and cultural skill. It means that
textbooks have been infused values for developing thinking skills into their
materials and exercises. The right treatment will boost the role of textbooks in
the EFL classroom while a clear understanding of textbook contents will lead
teachers to foster student’s thinking skills in the EFL classroom.

General contents of the EFL Textbook are the four language skills;
speaking, listening, reading, and writing. The additional contents may be added
such as grammatical knowledge, vocabulary building, or general information of
language studies. They come up with material and exercises for students. The
exercises engage students to measure their ability and lead them to develop
their language and/or thinking. Exercises in the textbook are designed with
various forms of questions. Meanwhile, according to Wu and Pei (2018), the
exercises in speaking, listening, grammar, or vocabulary section are generally
focused on language skills. They primarily design for the chance to practice the
students' language skills.3 While exercises in the reading and writing section
have more chances to improve the students thinking.

The proportion of contents for attitude, knowledge, and thinking

aspects has been stated in the 2013 curriculum, as below:

Picture 1: the proportion of attitude, knowledge, and skill (source: Kemendikbud, 2013)

Based on this diagram, the content for knowledge and skills develop
following the grade. Elementary school students are getting less portion of
knowledge. In junior high school, the knowledge portion is going larger and it
will develop in the senior high school stage. On the other side, the more portion
of knowledge that students get, the less portion of attitude will be taught.

Finally, this research is conducted to analyze the reflection of

thinking skill contents in textbooks for senior high school. Textbooks for senior

3
Wu.
 high schools are chosen based on the proportion of knowledge material as
stated before. This study will focus on the textbook’s exercises because the
reflection of the cognitive process exists in exercises. Furthermore, from the
section which most engage students thinking is reading and writing.
Meanwhile, generally, writing exercises are conducted by instructing students
freely write their thought based on it. So, this study will focus to examine the
distribution of cognitive levels in the reading questions.

The research will determine the cognitive level represented in

textbook questions. This work will use the taxonomy of cognition by Anderson
and Krathwohl (2001) or known as the Revised Bloom’s taxonomy as the basic
theory, following the standard of assessment in the 2013 curriculum. The
textbooks that will be analyzed are the three English textbooks entitled
“BAHASA INGGRIS” for senior high school grade X, XI, and XII published
by the Ministry of Education and Culture in the year of 2018. The three
textbooks are used to reveal the sequence of cognitive level distribution in each
grade.

B. Research Question

Based on the reason above, the research questions are developed as

followed:
1. How do the cognitive levels represented in the English textbooks for
Senior High School entitled “Bahasa Inggris” published by the
Ministry of Education and Culture in the year of 2018?

2. How is the difference of cognitive levels proportion in the three EFL

Textbooks for Senior High School by the Ministry of Education and
Culture?
C. Objectives of the Research

According to the research question, the objective of the research is to

examine the distribution of cognitive level based on the taxonomy of
cognition as manifested in reading comprehension questions in EFL
textbooks. This study is also aimed to reveals whether the three textbooks
have a significant difference in distributing the cognitive levels. From the
final result, the researcher will see how much the contribution of the
textbook to the area of developing student's thinking skills by its content. In
the end, the researcher hopes this research will help teachers to choose the
right treatment for textbooks to reach the maximum result. The textbooks
used in English textbooks for Senior High School entitled “Bahasa Inggris”
were published by the Ministry of Education and Culture in the year of 2018.

D. Scope of the Research

This study focused on identifying the cognitive levels based on the

taxonomy of cognition which is manifested in after-text reading questions
from English textbooks for senior high school. The three textbooks for the
different grades are used to analyze the development of the cognitive levels
in each grade of English textbooks for senior high school published by the
Ministry of Education and Culture in the year of 2018. It will determine the
level of cognitive process and the knowledge dimension contained in the
textbook and how the level is developed for each grade.
Because of the limitedness of time, the investigation is only concerned
with questions that come up after-text in reading activity sections in the EFL
textbook. It will analyze what kind of cognitive levels and their knowledge
dimension of reading questions in textbooks.
E. Significances of the Research

The result of this study is fully expected to give some theoretical and
practical advantages for the following parties
1. Theoretical benefit
The researcher wishes that this result of the study will give additional
information to the readers. They will know the cognitive level as it
manifested in the English textbook for senior high school. The
research findings can enhance the awareness of teachers to pay
attention on developing students thinking skills besides building their
English language competence.
2. Practical benefit
a. For the researcher, as a candidate of an English teacher, this study
can give practice in developing her knowledge and skill in
understanding English textbook
b. For English teachers, By knowing the findings of this research,
hopefully, teachers will have information in comprehending English
textbooks and be more pay attention to the students, especially in
their thinking skills to reach the learning aims.
c. For the reader, this study is expected to give broader insight or
perception about the textbook, textbook exercises, and thinking
skills.
d. For other researchers, the result of this study is expected to be used
as the foundation for the next research on textbook and cognitive
level.

F. Previous Research

There are some studies conducted in line with the topic of this study,
they are:
 1. A study conducted by Nayer Adli and Asgar Mahmoudi entitled “Reading
Comprehension Questions in EFL Textbook and Learner’s Level” which
is published in Jornal of Theory and Practice in Language studies in the
year of 2017. This study aimed to investigate the levels of reading
comprehension questions in the EFL Textbook and its appropriateness to
the learner`s level. The researchers realized that textbooks still have an
important role in the classroom even though the more effective teaching
methods are always developed. So, the study was conducted on textbooks
since its role in the process of teaching-learning.
This study explored the textbooks from the view of the
relationship between student`s levels and the question types in the
textbook4. It is an assessment of reading comprehension questions of the
EFL textbook because many Iranian EFL learners experience difficulty
with answering the reading comprehension questions in the Iranian EFL
textbook. The study was done by analyzing 44 units from textbooks for
elementary and advanced students based on the cognitive process by
Bloom. A checklist was used as the instrument of the study. The study
found that the analyzed EFL textbooks, though incorporating both lower-
level and the higher-level thinking skills, are not in conformity with
Bloom’s Taxonomy of learning objectives. All the four textbooks
emphasize the lower level questions than the higher-order questions.
From this research, the researcher is inspired and motivated to do
a study with the topic of reading comprehension question’s level in the
Indonesian EFL Textbook. Meanwhile, the researcher will do a
descriptive qualitative study to analyze the textbooks. It is quite different
from this study which is a quantitative study.

4
Nayer Adli, ‘Reading Comprehension Questions in EFL Textbooks and Learner s ’ Levels’,
Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 7.7 (2017), 590–95.
 2. The study was conducted by Abdulaziz Ibrahim in 2018, entitled
“Cognitive Levels in Saudi EFL Teachers and Textbook Questions”. The
purpose of this study is to investigate the thinking levels of questions
from instructors and textbooks for the first-year students of the English
Department at Al-Imam Mohammad ibn Saud Islamic University
(IMSIU). This comparative study is comparing the question by EFL
Teacher and EFL Textbook in the level of cognition. The analysis was
done by using the level of cognition by Bloom (Bloom’s taxonomy). This
descriptive study was using the content analysis method to analyze the
questions that come from the EFL instructors and the reading
comprehension questions of two EFL textbooks.
This study found that the majority of EFL Teacher' questions are
lower-cognitive levels. Furthermore, the reading comprehension questions
in the two EFL textbooks also tend to lower-cognitive levels 5. The result of
this study is in line with the stud by Adli (2017).
From this previous research, the researcher found the similarity in
the topic which discussing the cognitive levels of the question. The levels
of cognition will also use the taxonomy of the cognitive process by
Benjamin Bloom. Meanwhile, the researcher will only do the study on
reading comprehension questions from high school’s EFL Textbooks.
3. The study entitled “Analysis of IELTS and TOEFL Reading and Listening
Tests in Terms of Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy” by Samira Bagheri,
Mohammad Sadegh, and Mortaza Yamini. The study published in the
Cogent Education Journal in the year 2020 was aimed to compare IELTS
and TOEFL listening and reading test items based on the representation of
the learning objectives of Revised Bloom’s taxonomy. The analysis
covered the levels of cognitive process and the knowledge dimension of the
5
Abdulaziz Ibrahim S Alnofal, ‘Cognitive Levels in Saudi EFL Teachers ’ and Textbook
Questions’, Journal of Language Teaching and Research, 9.4 (2018), 695–701
<https://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.17507/jltr.0904.04>.
 questions. The data came from the 12 academic IELTS listening and
reading tests and 12 TOEFL iBT listening and reading tests. This study is a
quantitative-qualitative content analysis study. The qualitative method was
used to analyze the levels of cognitive process and knowledge dimension
of all the IELTS and TOEFL questions, while the quantitative method was
used to compare the distribution levels among IELTS and TOEFL
questions.
The result of this study found that higher-order thinking skills are
more frequent in TOEFL listening test items, while the IELTS listening test
items were more directed toward lower-order thinking skills. Furthermore,
the IELTS reading questions clustered around the three lower-order levels,
whereas the TOEFL reading questions covered both lower and higher-order
thinking levels6.
From this study, the researcher found several similarities and
differences. The similarity is on the topic of the study, which discussing the
cognitive levels of questions. Meanwhile, the differences are in the method
and source of the data. This study is quantitative-qualitative, while the
researcher will conduct a qualitative study with a content analysis method.
Furthermore, the data of this study came from 12 IELTS listening and
reading test items and 12 TOEFL listening and reading test items, while the
data for this research will come from the three textbooks for senior high
school with a different grade.

6
Samira Baghaei, Mohammad Sadegh Bagheri, and Mortaza Yamini, ‘Analysis of IELTS and
TOEFL Reading and Listening Tests in Terms of Revised Bloom ’ s Taxonomy’, Cogent Education,
7.1 (2020) <https://doi.org/10.1080/2331186X.2020.1720939>.