Authors : Rahida Aini Mohd Ismail, Rozita Arshad and Zakaria Abas
Abstract: In today’s information age, higher order thinking skills or HOTS is considered as an essential competency to deal with a rapidly changing world. HOTS is important to shape the way students learn and think. Teachers are the pivotal agents of improving the educational quality, especially in the context of student learning outcomes. The purpose of the paper is to propose a theoretical framework to examine the relationship between teacher efficacy and teacher effectiveness. To promote critical thinking society, educational approaches need to emphasize higher cognitive level in HOTS such as analysis, synthesis and evaluation, not the lower cognitive level such as memorizing, remembering and understanding facts. Learning and understanding basic facts and skills is no longer enough for high school graduates and HOTS is important for student’s academic and future success. Highly efficacious teachers are able to contribute enormously to the success of HOTS teaching and learning and to shape present-day student’s occupational outlook in preparation for the 21st century workforce. The present study focused on the concept of teacher efficacy and related literature review on teacher efficacy and effectiveness. The study also discussed on factors that hindered teachers from implementing HOTS.
Rahida Aini Mohd Ismail, Rozita Arshad and Zakaria Abas, 2017. Teacher Efficacy: Are They Effective in Implementing HOTS?. The Social Sciences, 12: 1136-1142.