Cognitive Complexity in Junior High School English Textbooks: A Comprehensive Analysis of Tasks and Instructional Questions

Abstract

This study uses content analysis to examine how well the activities and instructional questions in the Maestro English textbook for Eighth Grade Junior High School match with the cognitive stages of Bloom's Taxonomy. It is a descriptive qualitative study. The textbook consists of six chapters and includes a total of 55 activities and 441 questions. The results indicate that tasks are distributed over several levels of Bloom's Taxonomy, with a primary emphasis on the understanding category. The questions mostly correspond to the areas of remembering, comprehending, and applying. The study seeks to uncover patterns and trends in the cognitive difficulty of exercises and questions, offering insights for the instructional design of the textbook. The findings enhance our comprehension of the cognitive requirements imposed on learners within the realm of junior high school English instruction, providing significant insights for educators and curriculum designers.