Higher Order Thinking Skills of Pre-Service Social Studies Teachers
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Higher-order thinking skills (HOTS) focus on four domains: critical thinking, creative thinking, problem-solving, and decision-making. There is a lack of quantitative evidence about HOTS since it is dominated by qualitative research, which limits the capacity to evaluate the advancement of HOTS among social studies majors. This descriptive study aimed to identify the level of HOTS of pre-service social studies teachers. The statistical information on their evolution in higher education is not provided. There is a limited capacity to evaluate the advancement of HOTS on social studies pre-service teachers. A random sample of 139 social studies majors from different universities and colleges in Panay and Negros Islands, Philippines, answered the research questionnaire. The descriptive statistics used were mean and rank, while the inferential statistics used were the Kruskal-Wallis H-test set at a 0.05 level of significance. The study revealed that social studies pre-service teachers demonstrated a high level of HOTS, with problem-solving skills being highly used. Meanwhile, critical thinking skills ranked last among the four domains, making it the least commonly used of the four thinking skills. Significant differences were found in their high-er-order thinking skills. Strengthening higher-order thinking skills prepares them to guide the students to become thoughtful citizens who are equipped to address problems in society.
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