Assessment of Papers of English of Sukkur BISE Sindh, Pakistan: An Exploration of the Reflection of Bloom’s Taxonomy

Abstract

This study aims to assess tenth-grade examination papers of English from the boards of intermediate and secondary education (BISEs) in Sindh through the lens of cognitive domain of Bloom's Taxonomy and to identify examination papers for the reflection of higher-order thinking skills (HOTS) or lower-order thinking skills (LOTS). In quest for answers, the positivist’s philosophical stance is adopted, and the research approach is quantitative. The examination papers from 2015 to 2019 of tenth-grade English were analyzed. The five years papers were collected from Sukkur BISE. Based on the six levels of the Cognitive Domain, a checklist was developed to examine each item in the question paper. The findings reported that questions in English exam papers represented remember-level as the most dominant in the cognitive domain, while other level representation is negligible. Similarly, another finding informed more LOSTS than HOTS in all the examination papers. The suggestions advocate revamping examination paper setting to align the achievement of specific student learning outcomes for meeting competencies of the national curriculum. Future researchers may consider affective domain to elicit the societal impact of exam papers of other subjects and at various levels of education.