Secondary students’ higher-order thinking skills in solving PISA- like mathematical tasks

Abstract

Higher order thinking skills have become one of the main focuses in learning mathematics based on Indonesia curriculum currently. One of the teacher’s efforts to help students to develop higher order thinking skills is to provide questions like PISA questions. This is because PISA is a test of students’ abilities on an international scale, which also serves as a benchmark for the mathematical abilities of Indonesian students. This study is a descriptive type qualitative study. It purposed to describe students’ mathematical ability especially related to their higher order thinking skills in solving tasks like PISA tasks. Six secondary students consisting of 3 boys and 3 girls with different type of mathematical abilities were involved as research subject. Data were gathered through observation, interview, and documents such as students’ worksheets and they were analyzed qualitatively. The result showed that the most dominant skill appeared among analyzing, evaluating, and creating skills is analyzing skill. Although students sometimes made mistakes in determining final answers, they indicated trying to develop their skills by solving problem categorized as analyzing, evaluating or creating problem.