What is ‘Higher Order Thinking Skills’ (HOTS)?

February 23, 2008 at 12:47 pm · Filed under Edu-schools

Viji Raj

‘Higher Order Thinking Skills’ was introduced as an educational agenda in the publication of Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives in 1956. Thereafter, it has gone through several modifications.

Bloom and his team of authors classified the thinking skills into six areas:

• Knowledge
• Comprehension
• Application
• Analysis
• Synthesis
• Evaluation

The CBSE used these components in the previous examinations too. But this is the first time that they have reserved marks for these questions. In fact, loosely stating, almost all the questions asked by the CBSE in the paper would fit into one of these skills. So you need not worry. An analysis of the CBSE sample paper would tell you that there is an increase in the application based and reasoning based questions. Everything else will remain the same.

However, it would be worth while to know more about the typical question frame work for all the six areas mentioned above.

Knowledge This is about learning and recalling information from your text book and surroundings.

Typical questions of this type would be :

• Define, Describe
• List down, Name
• When, Where
• Tabulate, Identify etc.

Comprehension This is about drawing inferences from what you have read. The question may ask you to grasp the meaning, infer the causes and make predictions.

Typical question types are

• Explain / Discuss
• Compare / Contrast
• What will happen if
• Why does it happen so

Application This is about using the information that you have acquired in new situations to solve problems.

Typical question types are

• Numerical problems
• Apply / Illustrate
• Classify, etc.

Analysis This section is about seeing patterns in what you study and recognizing the implications.

The typical question types would be

• Arrange / Separate
• Classify / Compare
• Explain why

Synthesis This is your ability to draw conclusions from given facts and generalizations.

The question types are

• What if
• How will you design / plan
• What do you infer from

Evaluation This is about assessing the merit of what you have learnt, knowing its uses, and limitations; giving out reasoned arguments, etc.

The typical question types are

• Recommend / Judge
• What do you conclude
• Rank in the order of

From this discussion, it would be obvious that you are already prepared for most of the HOTS questions. So please don’t worry. Face the examination boldly.