Online Instructional Strategy with Different Goals Orientation on University Students' Higher Order Thinking Skills

Abstract

The rapid development of communication and computer technology bring a great impact on human life including education. The use of technology in every learning process has become a need, particularly in higher education level to produce a better teaching and learning process. This situation makes a vast contribution to the learning paradigm shift from a teacher-centered learning into a student-centered learning. The implementation of online instructional strategies is expected to enable students to overcome their learning problems, to encourage students' self-confidence and to perform their own independent learning. In this sense, students' characteristics such as their goal orientation and online instructional strategies will be one of the factors in the successful implementation of the improvement of higher order thinking skills in basic chemistry courses. The aims of this study are to examine the difference among students' higher order thinking skills using different goal orientation of learning and using goal orientation of performance. This study employed a quasi-experimental research design. The subjects were students of chemistry education (MIPA) at University of Tadulako Palu, Central Sulawesi, the instruments used in this study consisted of a written test, questionnaires, observation sheets, and an interview which is done before employing the instruments. The data were analyzed using ANOVA (Analysis of Variance). The research findings show that there are differences among students' higher order thinking skills taught using instructional goal orientation and those taught with performance goal orientation in basic chemistry courses, with a probability value of goal orientation is 0.029 (<α 0.05), and the average of instructional goal orientation is 43.55 higher than the average of performance goal orientation which is 40.62,