GGGB6013: RESEARCH METHOD 1

Task 1:
Problem statement, research aims, research objectives,
research questions and research hypothesis

Developing pupils Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS):

The effects of Instructional Practices in teaching literature and
graphic organizers in Miri, Sarawak primary schools

Prepared for:
Prof Madya Dr Aderi Mohd Nor
Prepared by:
Jenny Marto
(GP03763)

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TASK 1: Write the problem statement, research aims, research objectives, research
questions and research hypothesis for the topic of your choice.
Topic:
Developing pupils Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS): The effects of Instructional
Practices in teaching literature and graphic organizers in Miri, Sarawak primary schools
Keywords:
Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS), instructional practices, teaching literature, graphic
organizers
Introduction:
Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) are very crucial in developing high end, skillful
and knowledgeable future employees in the market place; regardless the sectors and fields of
employment. HOTS are considered one of the important soft skills in problem solving and
creative thinking among future employees as all employers want employees who are able to
solve problems and tackle issues more cost effectively.
In

order to achieve these, it is always start from education as education plays an

important part to develop the HOTS among the pupils; starting from the lowest level to the
highest, which will also being developed throughout their life-long learning.
Literature also plays a crucial role to build strong pillars of all sectors especially in
building cultural awareness and morality. This is in line with the government Vision 2020, to
build human capitals which are balanced, not only in their skills, knowledge and abilities, but
also in morality and good behavior which are implanted through understanding of culture in
literature.
Moreover, literature is one of the materials to introduce the pupils to intensive reading
and motivate them to read more and as a result to develop a reading habit among the pupils,
especially the primary pupils.

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Background of the Research

In order to give wider and proper exposure to literature texts and to improve the pupils
proficiency, the government had extended the literature reading among Years 4, 5 and 6 in 2004
and in 2005, the Ministry of Education had implemented the Contemporary Childrens Literature
and Extensive Reading Programme among the primary school pupils.
The main objectives of these programmes are to instill the reading habit which will
motivate them to read independently through the extensive reading programme. As a result of
these programmes, it is hoped that the pupils will benefit them by appreciating and
understanding other societies, cultures, values and traditions.
It is believed that literature also can help pupils in their spiritual and emotional growth,
and enrich the pupils linguistic ability, especially in vocabulary and language content. This also
provides a continuum learning abilities for their literature learning in secondary school after
finishing their primary schooling.
The reading programme starts with simple fictions which will emphasize in thinking
skills, cultural understanding in Malaysia context, to provide highly interesting texts.
The texts chosen for the literature lessons are graded readers which include short stories
and poems. The pupils are required to complete three prescribed texts per year. The literature
lessons are allocated with one period per week in national schools, but in national type primary
schools, (Tamil and Chinese) literature only taught a fortnight throughout a year. Due to the
limited time in the classroom, the pupils are requested to read the book beforehand at home and
then discuss the texts in class in order to implement literature teaching and learning at school.
Teachers are encouraged to consolidate and reflect on their pupils understanding and to
urge them to pay attention to the language use and literary devices such as the setting, plot,
characters, messages and moral values found in the texts read. Teacher also can use the materials
to assess the pupils for their School Based Oral Assessment (SBOA) and other types of
assessment to identify their pupils performances.
Problem Statement
Gurnam Kaur & Chan Yuen (2010) in their research found that during the literature
lessons, teachers tend to emphasize very little exposure on higher order thinking skills in their
comprehension instructions. The questions asked were analyzed based on the Blooms

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Taxanomy which are mainly knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis and
evaluation levels. Instead of asking the pupils personal views which connect to the pupils
HOTS, the pupils are only asked to read the text aloud and most of the time, during the question
and answer sessions, the teachers tend to ask more Lower Order Thinking Skills (LOTS)
questions.
On the other hand, in most literature classes, the pupils are asked to complete their
seatwork in pairs or groups depending on the activities prepared by teacher. The activities done

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after the whole class reading aloud are mostly on reading and writing skills. The pupils are asked
to complete the comprehension questions which the teachers got from commercial books to
prepare their worksheets.
Most of the questions asked in the comprehension questions required the pupils to give
short responses and not their personal responses about the text read. Thus, the findings of the
research indicated that the pupils were mostly asked with lower order thinking skill (LOTS)
questions such as comprehension (45.0%), knowledge (40.0%) and application (5.0%) questions
accounted for 90.0 % of all the questions posed to the students.
Meanwhile, the remaining 25% of the classroom time is used to discuss, but mainly oneway communication; teacher-pupils interactions, where the pupils only answer the questions
posted by their teachers. Other than that, the pupils were also asked about language-based
activities included grammar and vocabulary activities.
The integration of literary elements in the literature classrooms was also minimal. It is
because of the overly emphasized on the pupils comprehension (literal and surface level) by the
teachers. This might be caused by teachers lack of creativity to organize learning tasks during
the literature lessons.
This make the literature lesson less fun as what it supposed to be. So, graphic organizers
usages among the pupils hopefully will increase the interests of the pupils to learn literature by
these visual images to show their comprehension in other ways; more interesting and fun.
(Daniel Willingham, 2008)
Research Aims
This research is to identify the effect of instructional practices among teachers and the usages of
graphic organizers to the pupils Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) which emphasizes the

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importance of right instructional practices and graphic organizers. This research is also to
investigate the practices among teachers in primary schools in teaching literature and whether the
pupils HOTS are improved by using graphic organizers when they try to comprehend the
literature texts read.
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Research Objectives
The objectives of this research are to:
1. Identify the relationship between the teachers instructional practices with the pupils HOTS
capabilities
2. Identify the relationship between the graphic organizers usages with the pupils HOTS
capabilities
Research Questions
Based on the research objectives, the research questions for this research are:
1. Is there any significant relationship between the teachers instructional practices with the
pupils HOTS capabilities?
2. Is there any significant relationship between the graphic organizers usages with the pupils
HOTS capabilities?
Research Hypothesis
The hypotheses are built based on the basic research on the topic as it was proven before that the
teachers instructional practices has impacted the pupils Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS)
and there is a significant relationship between the graphic organizers usages with the pupils
reading comprehension. So, the alternative hypotheses are as below:
Ho: There is no significant relationship between the teachers instructional practices with the
pupils HOTS capabilities
Ho: There is no significant relationship between the graphic organizers usages with the pupils
HOTS capabilities

Table 1: Summary of research objectives, research questions and research hypothesis

No Research Objectives

Research Question

Hypothesis

1.

Identify the relationship between the

Is there any significant

Ho: There is no

teachers instructional practices with

relationship between the significant

the pupils HOTS capabilities

teachers instructional

relationship between

practices with the

the teachers

pupils HOTS

instructional

capabilities?

practices with the

pupils HOTS
capabilities

2.

Identify the relationship between the

Is there any significant

Ho: There is no

graphic organizers usages with the

relationship between the significant

pupils HOTS capabilities

graphic organizers

relationship between

usages with the pupils

the graphic

HOTS capabilities?

organizers usages
with the pupils
HOTS capabilities

References:
Gurnam Kaur Sidhu & Chan Yuen Fook. 2010. Instructional Practices in Teaching Literature:
Observations of ESL Classrooms in Malaysia. English Language Teaching www.ccsenet.org/elt
[29 June 2015]
D. Praveen Sam & P. Rajan. 2012. Using Graphic Organizers to Improve Reading
Comprehension Skills for the Middle School ESL Students. English Language Teaching Journal
Vol. 6, No. 2; 2013 155-170. http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/elt.v6n2p155 [29 June 2015]
Jiang, Xiangying. 2012. Effects of discourse structure graphic organizers on EFL reading
comprehension
Xiangying. Reading in a Foreign Language Journal Volume 24, No. 1 84105.
http://nflrc.hawaii.edu/rfl [29 June 2015]
Xiangying Jiang and William Grabe. 2007. Graphic organizers in reading instruction: Research
findings and issues. Reading in a Foreign Language Journal Volume 19, No. 1 3455.
http://nflrc.hawaii.edu/rfl [29 June 2015]

Notes
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Mohd aderi che noh

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Where's the references

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Where is the issue occur in malaysia.pls bring it base on research done in malaysia or any data

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Where's the references

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Where's the sources

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Reference?

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Where is descriptive objective

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