AN ANALYSIS OF READING COMPREHENSION QUESTIONS IN “PATHWAY TO ENGLISH” TEXTBOOK IMPLEMENTATION OF KURIKULUM MERDEK

This study aims to identify the categories of cognitive domains in the “Pathway
To English” textbook and determine the proportion of cognitive domains between
lower order thinking skills (LOTS) and higher order thinking skills (HOTS) using
the Revised Bloom's Taxonomy. This research is descriptive quantitative,
focusing on the "Pathway To English" Phase E textbook Kurikulum Merdeka for
10th grade senior high school students in the 2023/2024 academic year. A
checklist instrument was used for data collection. The study revealed that: 1) the
textbook encompasses all cognitive domain categories in its reading
comprehension questions: remembering (16.03%), understanding (36.64%),
applying (3.05%), analyzing (32.06%), evaluating (7.63%), and creating (4.58%).
2) The findings show that 55.72% of the reading questions are LOTS, while
44.27% are HOTS indicating a greater emphasis on LOTS. Despite covering all
cognitive domains, the textbook should place more emphasis on HOTS for
fostering students' critical and creative thinking abilities and align with the goals
of Kurikulum Merdeka. Teachers are encouraged to modify existing materials or
use supplementary textbooks to achieve these learning objectives.
Keywords: Reading Comprehension Questions, Textbook, Revised Bloom‟s
Taxonomy, Kurikulum Merdeka.