Higher-Order Thinking Skills of High School and College Students on Flood Mitigation
Article information
Abstract
Background and objective
Numerous flood disaster events encourage mitigation efforts. One of the efforts is education to high school and college students through a project-based learning (PjBL) model during COVID-19. The PjBL innovation can be developed by teachers with a formulation that integrates it with learning media and higher-order thinking skills (HOTS) as the measured parameter.
Methods
The research goal is to analyze high school and college students’ HOTS, learning media, and the PjBL model. Learning method employed in the research is descriptive. The HOTS instrument was developed according to Anderson’s taxonomy to measure the ability of high school and college students.
Results
The research results indicated that the HOTS score of the high school and college students was very low at 28.29 and 46.01, respectively. The research results suggested an improvement of the HOTS by developing a learning medium to enhance students’ HOTS. In addition, the results of the study also showed that the role of teachers and lecturers was very important in facilitating the use of learning media.
Conclusion
Teachers and lecturers in this context must be able to facilitate the formation of loving behavior towards the environment. The learning media will be a content supplement for the primary, secondary, and higher education in learning flood concepts. Based on the results, the conclusion is that high school and college students’ HOTS score is in a low category and all aspects of learning media can be integrated with PjBL.
Introduction
Natural disasters continue to occur in several urban areas. One of the disasters is floods. Flood often disturbs the social and economic activities of the communities since it cuts off the road accesses as they are inundated. Ongoing efforts to recover the social and economic activities must be conducted to prevent broader impacts for the communities. This encourages a more focused development of flood mitigation efforts (Chung and Yen, 2016; Crow and Albright, 2019; Prabawadhani et al., 2016; Sudewi et al., 2015), especially flood disaster during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).
Various flood mitigation efforts are available. One of the efforts is through education by classroom learning. The education effort can be done by developing project-based learning (PjBL). Disaster mitigation-related topics are essential for students and students to learn, especially on the PjBL utilization as a new learning innovation. PjBL as a learning model is an innovation to facilitate students to develop the product (Al-Balushi and Al-Aamri, 2014; Priantari et al., 2020; Seechaliao, 2017; Talmi et al., 2018; Thys et al., 2016). PjBL is an option in learning because it can increase student activities in classroom learning, especially in terms of student creativity in elementary and secondary schools. The utilization of the PjBL in this learning context is useful for being able to produce various products that can be used for the needs of the wider community. For example, the need to conduct education related to flood mitigation. The results of the PjBL-based learning will be more useful for this kind of situation.
The PjBL innovation can be integrated into higher-order thinking skills (HOTS)-based learning media. The learning media content discusses specific parts related to flood mitigation efforts applicable in urban areas. The flood-based learning media must be different from the existing learning media in terms of the integration of the PjBL model. In previous studies, various developments of HOTS-based learning media have been carried out, but most of them have not been effective in improving students’ HOTS abilities. Various things that have been developed are related to learning models, learning strategies, and learning media made to improve HOTS abilities (Husamah et al., 2018; Tanujaya, 2016). Moreover, several changes occurred in learning strategies to a digital-based when COVID-19 occurred. The need analysis of flood mitigation topics will have an impact on the development of learning media to become more modern during the COVID-19 (Crawford et al., 2020; Cutri et al., 2020).
Developing the media will require an analysis related to students’ current HOTS; hence, the learning media of the PjBL-integrated learning media can be developed consistent with the targets. The importance of learning media by PjBL is confirmed by other previous studies related to the HOTS that strive to develop learning models. Moreover, the PjBL implementation has been done although it has not been integrated. Other findings showed that various learning media have been developed starting from applications used for learning (Hu et al., 2013). In addition, the use of the website as an alternative learning has also been widely developed (Nugraini et al., 2013). These various developments are aimed at measuring students’ abilities at various levels of education in elementary and higher education. Based on this description, the role of learning media is crucial in the continuity of learning. Therefore, the research goal was to analyze high school and college students’ HOTS, learning media, and PjBL learning.
Research Methods
The research method employed was descriptive with data sampling technique of a survey using Google Form. Samples used included 233 students that consisted of 192 high school students and 41 college students selected using a simple random sampling. The research used an instrument test of an essay where students should provide the answers. The HOTS instrument developed followed the aspects stated in Anderson’s taxonomy, namely, analyze, evaluate, and create (Anderson et al., 2001). Next, indicators were developed according to each aspect so that 6 indicators were formed that were used to measure students’ HOTS. Indicators developed in the instruments are presented in Table 1.
HOTS indicators
After completing the measurement of students’ HOTS related to the flood prevention efforts, the next step was categorizing the HOTS scores into several categories. The HOTS categorization aimed to simplify the determination of high school and college students’ HOTS levels. Therefore, this would facilitate the learning media development to be applied in the next research. The HOTS categories based on Hidayati et al., (2021) are indicated in Table 2. In addition, a comparison test was conducted using a t-test to measure and compare scores between the two groups.
Categories of high school and college student HOTS score
Next, the research also analyzed the advantages of PjBL if it applied to environmental education. The PjBL analysis was conducted by observing the implementation of education at schools and universities. It was carried out so that the developed media can be adapted to the current state of PjBL usage. The use of PjBL in the classroom would be an illustration to determine the form of learning media to be created. The accuracy of the analysis is vital for a follow-up to future research. The results of the media analysis and the PjBL can be used as the basis for developing learning media that are more suitable to the learning conditions in the classroom.
Results and Discussion
The research results indicate that the students’ HOTS score was relatively low regarding flood problem-solving. Flood mitigation topics will be an issue if disasters continue to occur in various areas. High school and college students are agents of change that could educate their surrounding people on floods and their risks. Developing various innovations is one of the solutions to cope with the problem. The high school and college student HOTS scores can be seen in Table 3. Based on the description results presented in Table 3, no comparative t-test was conducted because they were not from the same group of levels; therefore, it will not be equivalent to compare it to the t-test.
HOTS score for each item of high school and college students
Based on the average HOTS score of the high school and college students for each indicator, the lowest score was in indicator C6 (create). HOTS aspect that is at the highest level requires special treatment to create an innovative product. The indicators are outlined in Table 4. The analysis results show that each indicator of high school and college students describes the actual situation of the students. The results of the HOTS measurement indicate the need for further development to improve the various indicators that high school and college students must exceed.
HOTS score for each indicator of high school and college student
In addition to the results of the descriptive analysis, the study results also suggested that there were significant differences between the 2 groups being compared; however, the college students were better. The results in detail can be seen in Table 5.
Comparative test results using the t-test
Regarding the analysis related to the PjBL application, the result suggests that the model was still used separately. It is recommended to use the learning model integrated with learning media implemented in classroom learning. Overall, the analysis results related to the PjBL application with learning media are shown in Table 6.
Analysis results of the relationship between learning media and the PjBL
These findings indicate that high school and college student environmental learning at the school and university levels was not optimal. Various environmental aspects cannot be further accessed or followed up in solving problems. Therefore, environmental learning seems monotonous and discusses non-actual topics. One actual environmental issue to study is related to the recurring floods (Renald et al., 2016; Shalihati et al., 2016). Hence, disaster-related education is a vital study to conduct.
An effort to educate the public on floods includes the problem of flooding that has become an issue that often occurs in various areas, especially in big cities. The flood mitigation-related issues surely need to be discussed and examined more wisely and in-depth. Various flood problems that occur will certainly make it difficult for the community to carry out its activities. One of the ways to develop socialization is by using the flood mitigation-related learning media that will become a more varied teaching material for teachers at the school and university levels during the COVID-19 situation.
The learning media development must have an orientation towards the implementation of technology-based teaching material development. Educational technology is suitable with the current trend of information technology development in the era of industry revolution 4.0 (Ashraf et al., 2012; Bowden, 2019; Buzov, 2014; Reyna et al., 2018). Social media can be a medium to disseminate various concepts on flood mitigation. Moreover, online-based learning will be more practical in overcoming distance learning constraints, especially during COVID-19.
High school and college students could perceive several advantages of distance learning. Many technical problems, however, must be addressed so that learning can run smoothly. Obstacles in learning could include slow-speed internet access, time management during learning, and internet data. These obstacles should not inhibit learning (Back et al., 2015; Mhouti et al., 2018; Nwagwu, 2020). High school and college students are expected to implement strategies to prevent the obstacles. Besides the use in distance learning, environmental education should be developed in implementing project-based learning (PjBL).
The PjBL implementation will create meaningful learning in class. Learning activities conducted by students will provide usable positive results. Additionally, the PjBL-integrated flood mitigation learning will improve high school and college student creativity. The to-be-developed learning media of flood based on the PjBL model will create active learning; thus, it will improve the HOTS of the high school and college students during the COVID-19 situation. PjBL becomes a suitable model to be able to continue to produce products when the pandemic hits Indonesia. The use of PjBL will be effective if it is supported by various learning media that can be contextual with the problems that exist around students’ residence. The use of this contextual material in learning media is important in making learning media appropriate to the development of the 21st century (Cukurova and Bennett, 2018; Heinrichs, 2016; Reyna et al., 2018).
Conclusion
Based on the study results, it was found that students’ HOTS score is very low for both high school students (28.29) and college students (46.01). Meanwhile, the results of the HOTS scores of high school and college students have some differences in each indicator. The research concludes that the high school and college student HOTS score was still in a low category. Thus, it requires an improvement with learning media. In addition, the results from the PjBL analysis with learning media show that in the digital aspect, the respondents involved and the project produced can be integrated with PJBL activities. One effort that can be done is by developing learning media about flood, especially flood disasters. The developed learning media must be integrated with the PjBL model to strengthen the result achieved. The research suggests a follow-up to these findings to develop the learning media in future research.
Notes
Thank you to the Jakarta State University (Universitas Negeri Jakarta) for the research funding in 2021 through a scheme of Postgraduate Research (Hibah Penelitian Pascasarjana).