Evaluation of a Higher Order Thinking Skills Test for the Topic of Cell Division and Subtopic of Gametogenesis (UKBATG)

Abstract

This quantitative study aimed to evaluate the quality of a Higher Order Thinking
Skills (HOTS) Test instrument for the topic of Cell Division and the subtopic of
Gametogenesis (UKBATG). UKBATG contains contextual question and problemsolving question which is 25 items in the form of multiple-choice and 6 subjective items
that can measure students' Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS). The process of
validity was conducted by five experts in the field of Biology and HOTS and two experts
in the field of Malay language and English language. The reliability of UKBATG was
determined by calculating the KR-20 coefficient, Cronbach’s alpha coefficient, and
inter-rater reliability (IRR) by determining the intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC).
The quality of UKBATG was also determined by calculating the difficulty index, p and
discrimination index, D for each item. Findings showed that all UKBATG items have a
good validity exceeding 70% agreement among experts. In terms of reliability, it was
found that the KR-20 coefficient was 0.774, with Cronbach's alpha of 0.844 and the
ICC coefficient in the range of 0.635 to 0.841. The values of p and D indicated that the UKBATG items were at a moderate level and were accepted as good items. In
conclusion, this study successfully developed an instrument that is good in terms of
validity and reliability and also has good item quality. The implication is that the
UKBATG can be used to measure students’ HOTS and increase the number of HOTS
test instruments, especially in Biology