Volume 5 - Issue 13 (2026-04-20)

Investigating Lower- and Higher-Order Thinking Skills Representation in English for Palestine 11

1-Researcher: Tawfiq Mohammad Tawfiq Omar

2- Professor: Khaled Abdul-Jaleel Dweikat

1- Arab American University- Palestine- Faculty of Graduate Studies (PhD candidate)

2- Faculty of Educational Sciences- English Language Department.

Al- Quds Open University-Palestine

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the representation of HOTs and LOTs in the activities and exercises in English for Palestine 11 is balanced. In addition, the study aimed to examine whether there is a balanced representation among the HOTs and LOTs. For this purpose, a descriptive-analytical approach was employed to analyze the wording of the textbook activities and exercises.  To collect the research data, a checklist and an analysis card were developed based on Bloom’s original Taxonomy. Moreover, descriptive statistics were used to quantify the analyzed data and calculate their frequencies and percentages. Findings revealed that the representation of the HOTs and LOTs in the activities and exercises lacks balance, with an emphasis on the LOTs (70%) over the HOTs (30%). Findings also indicated that the application skill predominates the textbook activities, accounting for 31.7% of the total frequency of the representation of cognitive skills, whereas the comprehension and knowledge skills were represented by 25.6% and 12.8%. In addition, analysis had the highest frequency, 17.7% among the HOTs, while evaluation and synthesis had a frequency of 8.7% and 3.5%, respectively. Based on the study’s findings, it was recommended that EFL teachers use supplementary activities that foster students' thinking skills. It was also recommended that curriculum designers integrate more high-level thinking activities in EFL textbooks to achieve a balance between them and the HOTs.  Future research should investigate the effect of the frequency of cognitive skills representation on EFL students’ achievement.