Date of Award

6-2012

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Education (MEd)

Department

Curriculum & Instruction

First Advisor

Dr. Negme/din A/sheikh

Second Advisor

Dr. Hamid A/awidi

Third Advisor

Dr. Sadiq A. Ismail

Abstract

This study investigated English language teachers’ perceptions of the level of the cognitive questions in the UAE high school. A survey was randomly distributed to the English language teachers in Al Ain high schools to find out their perceptions of the levels of the cognitive questions they ask in the classrooms. From a population of 250 English language teachers in Al Ain, 128 teachers participated in filling the survey. The survey is based on Bloom’s Cognitive levels Taxonomy and includes thirty statements representing the six cognitive levels of questions. In the study, the levels of cognitive questions of the entire sample were investigated accordingly. Group one, two, three and four with one to five, six to ten, eleven to fifteen and more than fifteen teaching years of experience respectively.

Results generated from the entire sample indicate that more focus was on questions that address the low cognitive, levels including knowledge and comprehension and less focus on higher levels including application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation. In comparison, results gleaned from the groups similarly indicate no major differences in teachers’ levels of cognitive questions in terms of teaching experience. The four groups reported more occurrences of the lower cognitive questions than the higher cognitive questions. The knowledge level had the most occurrences contrasted with the application cognitive level which was the least in prevalence. This indicates that teaching experience was not a tangible factor in determining cognitive levels of teachers’ questions.

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