Critical Analysis of HOTS-Based Assessment Instruments for Qawa‘id Nahwiyyah: A Study of Al-Muyassar

Abstract

Assessment instruments in teaching qawā‘id naḥwiyyah should ideally be designed not only to measure students’ memorization of grammatical rules but also to foster Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS). This article aims to critically analyze HOTS-based assessment instruments in the book Al-Muyassar fī ‘Ilmin Naḥwi by Aceng Zakariya. The study employed a descriptive qualitative approach using content analysis of 40 selected exercise items. The classification of cognitive levels was conducted based on the Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy. The results show that the assessment instruments in this book are structured in a gradual and progressive manner. Of the 40 items analyzed, 15 items fall into the LOTS category (C1–C2), 10 items into the MOTS category (C3), and 15 items into the HOTS category (C4–C6). This proportion indicates that Al-Muyassar does not merely emphasize basic skills such as remembering and understanding, but also provides substantial opportunities for application, analysis, and creation. In the final sections of the book, the exercises increasingly require syntactic competence, sentence structure analysis, and the construction of new sentences, all of which represent higher-order thinking skills. These findings suggest that Al-Muyassar has strong potential as a HOTS-based Arabic grammar textbook, as it presents a tiered sequence of exercises ranging from basic to complex cognitive levels. Consequently, this book can be effectively utilized by teachers to promote more critical, analytical, and productive grammar learning. The assessment instruments contained in this book contribute to the development of students’ critical and creative thinking, as well as their awareness in understanding and applying Arabic grammatical rules.