Examining the cognitive demands in biology and physics practical advanced level examinations in Malta

Abstract

Cognitive learning is shown as a six-level hierarchy by Bloom’s Taxonomy, where each level up demands more mental processing. Although educators have been using it since 1956, Anderson and Krathwohl improved it in 2001. This research is based on Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy, which consists of three lower-order cognitive skills (LOCS): remembering, understanding, and applying, and three higher-order cognitive skills (HOCS) - analysing, evaluating, and creating. The aim of this study is to investigate the cognitive profile of the Advanced Matriculation practical examination papers in Biology and Physics, local high-stakes examinations that determine whether students meet the entry requirements for the University of Malta. Data was gathered over a 20-year period from 72 papers and the cognitive objective level of 394 Biology and 467 Physics questions was determined based on Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy. According to the results, Biology had a higher mean percentage of HOCS questions (70.7%) than Physics (10.5%), which indicates that Biology is a more cognitively demanding subject. There was a positive correlation between the percentage of HOCS and marks, indicating that the more cognitively demanding the subject is, the higher the marks rewarded to the HOCS category. The number of cognitive objectives differed between Biology and Physics. The Biology examination covered all six levels of the cognitive objectives however the creating objective was lacking in Physics. This research suggests that careful design of the Physics examination questions utilising various quantifiable verbs might be more helpful in supporting the development of higher-level cognitive skills in formal examinations.