Assessing Analytical Thinking in the Algerian First Year Secondary School Textbook At the Crossroads: An Evaluation

Abstract

The present work is an attempt to examine the implementation and the assessment of analytical thinking skill in the Algerian secondary school. Throughout the study, this issue is examined with reference to the first year secondary school textbook At the Crossroads (Rich, B. 2014)and the teachers’ views about the assessment parts of the aforementioned textbook. This research is based on the theory of Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy (2001) in order to categorize the action verbs of the assessment parts in “Check your Progress”. The research data are brought out from two main sources: a corpus of the tasks and activities provided in the assessment parts of the first year secondary school textbook At the Crossroads and a questionnaire which was submitted to secondary school teachers of English at Makouda and Timizart in (Tiziouzou). The latter helped us to evaluate the textbook content from teachers’ perspective. The gathered data were analyzed by using a computer program called Social Package for Social Sciences (SPSS), and the qualitative data were presented referring to content analysis (CA). Using all these tools, results were reached related to the questions asked in the General Introduction: the assessment parts of the textbook At the Crossroads provide activities targeting analytical thinking and deal with lower and higher order thinking skills. However, the evaluation also demonstrates that analytical thinking is not adequately covered within the textbook. That is, the findings make it clear that the textbook is shallow and superficial with respect to its assessment of analytical thinking. As a result, secondary school teachers of English hold negative oppinions towards the assessment parts “Check your Progress”.