An Analysis on the Cognitive Level
of Teacher Questions in EFL Classroom
of Junior High School in Semarang Residence
DesiAriani
Abstract
To help students achieve their optimum learning, teachers should apply
questioning strategies in their classroom. One of questioning strategy which can be
applied is related to various cognitive levels of questions. However, seeing teachers
teaching during my teaching practicum in a junior high school in Banyubiru, I noticed
that some teachers did not really optimize the questioning practice. This study aims to
explore cognitive levels of questions used by three EFL teachers in junior high school
in Banyubiru. They taught seventh and eighth grade students. In this study,
observation was used to collect the data. The data were teachers’ questions, which
were classified into six levels of cognition based on Bloom’s taxonomy. The result of
this study shows that the teachers used various cognitive levels of questions, but they
mostly used comprehension level questions which are in the lower order of cognition.
This study can be useful for teachers to be aware of various cognitive levels of
questions and apply in the classroom in order to help students to optimize their
learning.
Keywords: questioning, cognition, level of question, Bloom’ taxonomy, higher
order, lower order
Introduction
It is really important for teachers to use the best teaching technique to make a
good teaching. One of the teaching techniques that we really need to pay attention is
the practice of questioning as it helps teachers to gain students’ responses and
stimulate their thinking skill. More importantly, question is very beneficial to help
students learn necessary information or material. As Weimer (2011) stated, when
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teachers ask question or gather students’ responses about certain topic, the teachers
actually let the students get the important information. Therefore, questioning can
create positive impact.
As the other important benefit, Weimer (2011) also stated that questioning can
provide feedback. When teacher ask questions, the students will think and are
demanded to respond. When students try to respond, teachers can see how far the
students understand the lesson and teacher can correct or help the students to correct
their mistakes or something they have not really understood (Weimer, 2011).
Therefore, by asking questions, teachers can oversee students’ comprehension and
stimulate students’ cognitive developments, especially if teacher can optimize their
questioning technique during teaching-learning process.
According to Pearson Education entitled Questioning Strategy Chapter 9,
teachers usually use question for many reasons, such as to get students’ interests,
checking understanding, and recalling students’ previous lesson. Fattahi (2013)
claimed that questioning should help students develop their creativity and thinking
skill by relating the material and applying the concepts to the real world, not only for
assessing student’s comprehension. Therefore, to give positive impact in students’
learning, it’s important for teachers to know the hierarchy of the lower to the higher
order of cognition and apply the questioning strategy in the classroom.
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The most well known hierarchy of cognitive level of questions was authored
by Bloom in 1956 and is best known as Bloom's Taxonomy. The hierarchy is
classified from the lowest to the highest order of cognition.
There were some previous studies on analysis of the cognitive level of
questions conducted by some researcher such as Davis (1969), Huenecke (1970),
and Khorsand (2009). The result of all the studies showed that the most question
level used by teachers was lower order of cognition.
The result of the studies was very similar to my experience. When I was in
junior high school, my English teacher always used lower level question such as
“Do you know Tangkuban Perahu?”, while actually the higher level of question
like “How if the Prince did not married the Princess?” can help students to have
more creative thinking. There is a gap between the theory about higher level of
question with the result of previous studies and also my own experiences as an EFL
learner, that indicate the more frequently use of lower level of question. Examining
teachers question is important since the use of higher level of question can help
students to improve their thinking skill.
For this reason, I conducted a research on an analysis on the cognitive level of
teachers’ question used in a junior high school in Banyubiru. I chose the school
because during my teaching practicum in this school, I had to observe the English
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teachers’ teaching and I saw that the teachers did not really optimize the practice of
questioning.
Understanding the cognitive levels of questions used by the teachers, this
study can be beneficial for teachers as reference to make them aware of various
cognitive levels of question and apply it in teaching-learning process to give positive
impact on students learning.
This study was conducted to answer the following question: What are the
cognitive levels of teacher question used by the English teachers in one of junior
high school in Banyubiru?
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Theoretical Framework
This part will discuss the theories about question, cognitive level of question,
as well as result of previous related studies.
Question
Question is any statement that contains interrogative form or function (Cotton,
2001). In classroom, questions are defined as “instructional cues or stimuli that
convey to students the content elements to be learned and directions for what they are
to do and how they are to do it.” (Cotton, 2001).
In a teaching – learning process, there will be many questions delivered.
Richard (1996) listed some reasons why teachers use questions, those are to:stimulate
and maintain students’ interest, encourage students to think and focus on the content
of the lesson, clarify what had said by their student, elicit particular structures or
vocabulary items, check students’ understanding, encourage student to participate in a
lesson. (p.185)
In addition, Cotton (2001) mentioned the variety of purposes of questioning,
those are to: develop interest and motivate students to become actively involved in lessons,
evaluate students’ preparation and check on homework or seatwork completion, develop
critical thinking skills and inquiring attitudes, review and summarize previous lessons,
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nurture insights by exposing new relationships, assess achievement of instructional goals and
objectives, stimulate students to pursue knowledge on their own
Levels of questions
There are six level of cognition (thinking) of questions based on Bloom’s
Taxonomy. The first hierarchy, which is the lowest level of cognition, is knowledge.
This level required the students to recall information they have. E.g. What is the
capital city of Indonesia?
The second level is comprehension that asks the students to understand the
meaning or combine the data or information they get. E.g. What is the main idea of
the first paragraph?
The third level is application which required the students to apply the
knowledge in the new situation. E.g. If you want to retell something happened, what
tense should you use?
The forth level is analysis which is in higher order of cognition. In this level,
teacher will ask the students to analyze to identify reasons, causes, or motives and
reach conclusions or generalizations. E.g. Why did the writer go to the hospital?
The fifth level is synthesis which invites the students to produce original ideas
and solving problem. E.g. If you can change the story, how would you create the
ending?
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The highest level of questions is evaluation which asks the students to judge
the value of ideas. E.g. What’s wrong with his attitude in the story?
The use of cognitive level of teacher’s question
Previously, there were similar researches about questioning level. One of
them was conducted by Khan and Inamullah (2011). The result showed that
questioning always appears almost in every lesson. The majority level of questioning
which appeared was lower level - knowledge, comprehension, and application.
Other researcher, Igbaria (2013) had similar finding on his research on the
analysis of the level of questions based on the six levels of the cognitive domain of
Bloom’s Taxonomy in the Textbook Horizons (2013). The result showed that the
level of questions mostly appearedwas the comprehension level which is lower
cognitive level. Only about 36% questions were in higher order of cognition. In this
research, the data was analyzed similarly.
The Study
Context of the study
The study was conducted in one of Junior High School in Banyubiru in
Semarang Residence, Central Java.
In teaching and learning English in the
classroom, the languages used were mixture of Indonesian, Javanese, and English.
The reason of choosing this school is because the school is located close to my house
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and I want to contribute into this school since I had had my teaching practicum there.
During my observation on the teachers’ teaching process in this school, I saw that
some teachers did not make use of questions to optimize the teaching-learning
process. Hence, I am interested in analyzing the teachers’ questions, relating to the
theory of Bloom’s taxonomy. By this research, it can be known how the use of lower
and higher cognitive level of questions used by teachers.
Participants
The participants were three EFL teachers of junior high school in Banyubiru.
Initially, I would involve all the teachers in the school, but because the ninth grade
had to focus on national examination, I had to exclude teacher teaching ninth grade
and the observation can only be done in seventh and eighth grade, which were taught
by the three teachers. The three teachers who participate in this study had related
education background and graduated from English education program. They have
been teaching English for several years. In the classroom, not all teachers used
questioning intensively. One of them used teacher-centered technique in teaching
English. Therefore, the teacher asked very limited number of questions.
Instrument of data collection
In this study, observation was used as the instrument to collect the data. The
observation was conducted twelve times in twelve different classes (six classes of
seventh grade and six classes of eighth grade). The focus of this observation was the
teachers’ questions. In this study, observation protocol was used. Dornyei (2007) has
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explained different purposes of observation protocol. Since the frequency of
questioning occurrence was not the major concern of this study, as the concern was
on questions delivered by the teachers, time-sampling protocol was used to note
down the questions that was classified into six level of cognition. The teacher
questions were noted down through the observations using this form:
Table 1
The observation protocol used in the study
Class:
Time
Teachers Questions
Sampling
Date:
Levels of Questions
Kn Com Ap An
Syn Ev
1-10'
10-20'
20-30'
Total
Kn= knowledge
An= analysis
Comp= comprehension
Syn= synthesis
Ap= application
Ev= evaluate
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Data collection procedure
There were several steps have been done in the data collection. First, deciding
the participants of the research and ask for permission to the school principal, who
also participated in this study to conduct observations in English class. Second,
arranging observation schedule based on the teachers time and the English class
schedule. The last, observing was done twelve times in twelve different classes. Each
observation took around 20-40-minute long. The teacher questions were noted down
to answer the research question.
Data analysis procedures
After the data was collected, the following steps were taken to analyze the
data: first, classifying the teachers’ questions into six level of cognition based on
Bloom’s taxonomy, which are knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis,
synthesis, and evaluation. After confirming the cognitive level, the data was recapped
in the form of table to answer the research question and also converted into
percentage to make the data more readable. After calculated the data, it was divided
into two categories – higher and lower order and was displayed on a chart.
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Findings and Discussion
From twelve observations in twelve different classes, there were 310
questions which were asked by the three teachers. Below is the data of the questions
analysis based on six cognitive levels based on Bloom’s taxonomy:
Table 2
Classification result of the study
Cognitive Level of Questions
Kn
Com
Ap
7A
5
2
0
7B
6
9
2
7C
6
8
0
7D
0
3
1
7E
2
1
1
7F
1
1
1
8A
9
20
0
8B
16
14
2
8C
5
24
3
8D
10
13
3
8E
21
32
1
8F
19
15
4
Total 100
142
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Class
An
3
1
0
5
0
1
3
7
6
5
4
9
44
Syn
2
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
2
0
4
Ev
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
0
0
0
1
0
2
Kn= knowledge
An= analysis
Comp= comprehension
Syn= synthesis
Ap= application
Ev= evaluate
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The above table indicated that the most frequently questions employed were at
the lower cognitive level which was “comprehension”. While the questions at the
highest cognitive level which is “evaluate” only appeared twice. This study provides
evidence that the use of higher cognitive level (which include analyze, synthesis, and
evaluate level) of question was low, as can be seen in the chart below:
Figure 1. Percentage of the observation result
Observation Result
Analyze; 14,2%
Synthesize;
1,3%
Application;
5,8%
Evaluate; 0,6%
Knowledge;
32,3%
Knowledge
Comprehension
Application
Comprehension
; 45,8%
Analyze
Synthesize
Evaluate
Figure 1. presents that the questions asked by the teachers were mostly in
comprehension level which is categorized as lower order of cognition. The second
frequently used was knowledge level. The evaluate level which is the highest level
was the most rarely used. Among 310 questions 32,3% were knowledge level, 45,8%
were comprehension, 5,8% were application, 14,2% were analyze, 1,3% were
synthesize, and only 0,6% were evaluate level.
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Figure below shows the exactly different number of the use between lower
and higher level of cognition:
Figure 2. Cognitive level of questions used by the teachers
Cognitive level used
Higher
cognitive level
16%
0%
Series1,
0%
84%
Lower
cognitive level
Figure 2 demonstrates the use of lower and higher level of questions which is
clearly unequal. Based on the data, it can be seen that only 16% questions asked by
the teachers which was in the higher level of cognition. The rest 84% were in the
lower level of cognition.
In determining the data analysis of the questions delivered by the teachers, the
questions were classified from the lowest to the highest cognitive order as below:
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1. Knowledge
In the cognitive domain, “knowledge” represents the lowest level of
questions. To answer the questions, students are only required to remember
their previous knowledge. Common question asked by the teachers in this
study is “Do you still remember…. ?” which indicate a recalling material.This
kind of question is classified in this level because it only recalls the students’
previous learned material. A further example of questions in knowledge level
is in the 5th observation which talked about a narrative text, the legend of Lake
Toba:
Do you know who is the character of the story? (5th
observation, 21st of February)
To answer this question, the students only had to look back and listed the
characters in the story.
Interestingly, some questions can be classified into more than one
level. For example
What is the purpose? (8th observation, 26th of March)
What is the purpose of narrative text? (1st observation, 8th of
February)
Both in the 8th and first observation, the teachers and students were discussing
kinds of text included the characteristics, generic structure, and the purpose of
the text in eighth grade. While in the 8th observation they discussed recount
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text which was someone’s experience, in the first observation they talked
about narrative text which was about little mermaid. In this case, they had
discussed recount and narrative texts in the previous meeting. The sample
questions above could be classified as analysis level. However, since the
purpose of the teacher was only for recalling the students about the purpose of
recount and narrative text, which had been discussed before, this question was
classified into knowledge level.
In my experiences it was also proven that teacher often ask this kind of
question to remind the students about the purpose of different kinds of text.
E.g. narrative text is purposed to entertain the readers, descriptive text is
purposed to describe things or people, and so on.
Another example can be seen from 5th observation, 21st of February,
2014:
What is in the orientation?
In orientation, what can you find? (5th observation, 21st of February)
In this case, the lesson about orientation had been taught in previous meeting.
Thus, these two questions were classified into knowledge level as the students
were asked to recall the material they had learned in the previous meeting.
Related to the purpose of questions, Cotton (2001) listed variety of
purposes of questioning, but there seem to be different purposes in using the
knowledge level of questions. As stated before, knowledge level required
students to recall previous material, it can be concluded that the possible
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purpose of using this level based on Cotton (2001) listed is to review and
summarize previous lesson. Another purpose is probably to encourage
students’ participation in a lesson (Richard, 1996) as can be seen from this
question:
Anyone knows what letter is? (11th observation, 23th of April)
The topic of the lesson in the 11th observation was about letter in 8th grade. By
the question above, the students were engaged to give response.
2. Comprehension
In the comprehension level students are required to understand a
context by explaining or summarizing, stating ideas and retell a context using
their own words. E.g.
What is the first paragraph about? (5thobservation, 21th of
February)
In that particular context, students should understand the text, and then answer
the question using their own words.
Another sample question can be seen as in this example:
So, what is orientation? Orientation itu apa? (5th observation,
21st of February)
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The question was classified into comprehension level because the students are
required to summarize or conclude about what orientation is, which had been
talked before.
As for the possible reason of questions at this level is probably to
encourage students to think and focus on the content of the lesson (Richard,
1996). E.g.
What should be there? (11th Observation, 23rd of April)
In the 11th observation, teacher and eighth-grade students were talking about
letter which is recount text. The students would be directed to comprehend
and focus on the content of the passage given by the teacher which was the
letter. Another possibility of using this level was to elicit particular vocabulary
as can be seen from this example:
‘furious' itu apa?
‘ran home' apa?
what is 'promise'?
what is 'huge disaster'?
what is 'disaster'? 'Huge'?
‘nonstop’ ki opo? What is ‘nonstop’? (12th observation 26th of April)
Similar to the 11th observation, the lesson in the 12th observation was
also about letter in eighth grade. Here, teacher and students were discussing
an example of letter. From the above questions, we can see that the students
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were asked to elicit vocabulary to translate and understand the meaning of the
sentence in the passage. Meanwhile, another possible reason for using the
comprehension question was to encourage students to participate in a lesson,
as in the example below:
Will you say something about formal letter? (11th
Observation, 23rd of April)
3. Application
Application has higher intellectual level than comprehension level.
Here students are asked to apply the lesson into a new situation or real world.
E.g.
What lesson can you get from the story? (5th observation, 21st of
February)
Another example is appeared in 9th observation which talked about
recount text:
Use –ed or not? (27th of March)
Student should apply the best form of tenses. The sample question above can
be asked to elicit particular structure.
Other example which required students to apply the lesson into real
world is:
Our class is always clean, why? How come? (4th observation, 21st
February)
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The students were asked about something related to real world in the
classroom. Thus, this kind of question was classified into application level.
Another example was quite interesting since it can be both knowledge
and application level as the example in 7th observation in 7th grade below:
‘making' terbentuk dari kata kerja?(7th observation, 19th of March)
Begin-beginning, contoh lainnya apa? (7th observation, 19th of March)
The second term was considered as application level because previously
teacher had talked about the form-making using –ing. Then students were
required to apply the theory of –ing form in a new situation, not only recalling
previous lesson.
Therefore, it can be seen that the occurrence of questions in this level
is very little. This maybe because it is quite difficult since in application level
question, the student should apply the theory of the lesson into a new context
of lesson. From the sample questions, eliciting particular structure is the most
possible reason of teachers using this level of question. E.g.
Was or were? (9th observation, 27th of March)
Use –s or not? (8th observation, 26th of March)
4. Analysis
In this level students were required to analyze to identify reasons,
causes, or motives and reach conclusions or generalization. E.g.
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What kind of story is that? (1st observation, 8th of February)
Is it happy ending? Why? (5th observation, 21th of February)
In the examples, students were asked to analyze the kind of story and give
reason why the story was happy ending or not. The purpose of teachers using
this level can be for developing students’ critical thinking skills and inquiring
attitudes since the students should analyze with their own reason.
5. Synthesis
In this level students were invited to give ideas, create something new,
and were encouraged to have creative thinking. They also can develop
previous ideas with their new thought. E.g.
Do you know, can you guess what is the last wish? (5th
observation, 21st February)
To answer this question, students will give their new ideas.
There are only 4 questions in this level. The level of application places
at the second lowest order of questions mostly used by teachers.
The purpose of using this level was probably to develop interest and
motivate students to become actively involved in lessons (cotton, 2001). It
might be rarely used because teachers did not want to bring too much new
ideas in the class discussion which would trigger too many difference ideas
from the students.
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6. Evaluation
In the evaluation level, students were required to judge the value of
material and give solution of a problem. This level has the highest cognitive
order since the students have to give judgment after understanding context of
the material after using the previous lower cognitive level of questions. E.g.
Is it a good story? (5th observation, 21th of February)
To answer this question, students were required to judge whether the story is
good or not, and provide the reason.
The reasons of using this level may be to stimulate students’ critical
thinking because students were required to judge with the reason.
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Conclusion
This study is conducted to answer the research question: What are the
cognitive levels of teachers’ question used by the English teachers in a junior high
school inBanyubiru?” From the twelve observations in twelve different classes of
seventh and eighth grade in a junior high school in Banyubiru, it can be concluded
that the teachers used all variation level of questions based on Bloom’s taxonomy,
but comprehension level was mostly used.
Theoretically, higher cognition (include analyzing, synthesis, and evaluative
level) provide critical thinking skill. Question is usually used to assess students’
understanding, but more than that, teacher should also use variation of question to
help students extend their thinking and also stimulate them to have creative thinking.
Higher level of question can help students to increase their thinking skill and
creativity. Meanwhile, the finding of this study shows that teachers did not explore
higher level of questions. However, the finding can be related to the reasons of
questioning. Hence, there are some probable reasons of using certain level of
questions.
This study focused on what cognitive level of questions used by the teachers.
Unfortunately, by using observation, this study cannot provide the real reasons of
employing certain level of question from the teachers. Therefore, it will be
interesting if a further research could assess the teacher’s reason of using certain
level of question by interview.
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From this study it can be learnt that teachers can use varieties of cognitive
level of questions to help students achieve their optimum learning. In addition, it
also can be explored to know the reason of using certain level of questions.
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Acknowledgement
This thesis would not have been completed without the help and support from
many people. Therefore, I would like to express my sincere appreciation to the
following people who assisted me in completing this thesis. First and foremost, I
would like to express my gratitude to Allah SWT who has given His mercy and
guidance. I would also like to thank Mrs. Victoria Usadya Palupi, MA-ELT, my
beloved supervisor for giving helpful comments and guiding me to finish this study.
To Prof. Dr.Gusti Astika, M.A., my second reader, thank you for the assistance to
complete this study. Further thank to my beloved mom, dad and family, who have
educated, motivated and supported me. Thanks are also due to beloved boyfriend
and my lovely friends for giving me joy and motivation. Thanks too to my
participants for the cooperation to collect the data of this study. Finally I would like
to add my personal thanks to people in Satya Wacana I cannot mention one by one.
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