Eighth Grade Textbook Reading Comprehension Questions and Barrett's Taxonomy: Teachers' Perspectives at Hebron District, Palestine

Abstract

The aim of this quantitative study is to examine the teachers' perspectives towards the reading comprehension questions in the 8th grade English student's textbook. The study also addresses the extent of comprehension questions based on Barrett's Taxonomy. The researchers used a questionnaire to collect their data and answer the research questions. The sample of the study included 92 teachers (males & females) from the government, private, and UNRWA schools in Hebron District. SPSS (Statitical Package for Social Science) has been used to analyse the data. The results regarding the general attitudes of the 8th grade teachers towards the textbook and the comprehension questions revealed that the teachers' views towards the textbook shape, objective, content, and teaching aids are positive and highly acceptable. However, the results regarding the extent of the availability of the reading comprehension questions in reference to Barrett's Taxonomy clearly show that the questions in English for Palestine-Eighth Grade, generally test literal comprehension, which means that students were frequently asked to recognize and recall ideas, and facts clearly identified in the texts. The researchers concluded that the higher order thinking skills in Barrett Taxonomy are not adequately represented in the 8th grade textbook. They recommended incorporating these findings in the students' textbook and advised English language teachers to prepare and ask questions including high-level comprehension questions based on Barrett' Taxonomy.