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DOI: https://doi.org/10.34069/AI/2023.72.12.9
How to Cite:
Bilonozhko, N., Syzenko, A., & Chernyshova, S. (2023). Reducing assessment anxiety: A case for using revised Bloom’s taxonomy
in ESP. Amazonia Investiga, 12(72), 101-111. https://doi.org/10.34069/AI/2023.72.12.9
Reducing assessment anxiety: A case for using revised Bloom’s
taxonomy in ESP
Зменшення передекзаменаційної тривоги: досвід використання таксономії Блума у
викладанні англійської мови за професійним спрямуванням
Received: November 9, 2023 Accepted: December 27, 2023
Written by:
Nataliia Bilonozhko1
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3192-5615
Anastasiia Syzenko2
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8443-7813
Svitlana Chernyshova3
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0284-2001
Abstract
This paper explores the benefits of incorporating
the prepared speaking format into the final
assessment in English for Specific Purposes, as a
response to pandemic and the full-fledged war in
Ukraine. The aim was to maintain students’
achievements and reduce examination-related
anxiety triggered by war stress. As literature
review suggests, anxiety blocks cognitive
process and ability to critical thinking, the
development of which requires focused and
sustained attention and correlation of emotions
and cognition. Since the critical thinking
development is one of the key competences of
the XXI century, the format of the designed pre-
examination tasks is based on questioning
techniques with trajectory on cognitive levels of
Bloom’s Taxonomy, originally developed to help
educators set educational objectives. In the
suggested format it underwent a transformation,
shifting from a teacher-centered approach to a
student-centered one with the aim to enhance
students’ critical thinking and the ability to ask
higher cognitive questions. This study was
carried out through a qualitative longitudinal
approach with semi-structured interviews, a
survey, and observation as data collection
methods. The findings demonstrated the viability
and a crucial role of prepared speaking format in
eliminating anxiety, by providing the
1
Associate Professor, Scientific and Research Institute of Philology, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Ukraine.
2
Associate Professor, Faculty of Economics, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Ukraine.
3
Associate Professor, Scientific and Research Institute of Philology, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Ukraine.
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achievement-oriented strategies focusing
students’ attention on effective task engagement.
Key words: anxiety, Bloom’s taxonomy, critical
thinking, English for Specific Purposes, prepared
speaking.
Introduction
Since the beginning of the 2020s, global
pandemic and political instabilities have created
extraordinary socio-economic circumstances,
greatly impacting the lives of many and leading
to significant changes in the field of education.
Participants of the World Economic Forum 2023
unanimously expressed concerns regarding the
slowdown of economic growth in the world's
largest economies. COVID-19 and the war in
Ukraine are considered a critical turning point
that has disrupted the global economic system.
Thus, the scale of the global crisis and the
anticipated potential for future crises require the
transformation of defensive measures into
proactive, vision-oriented policies and business
strategies (World Economic Forum, 2023).
The quality of higher education in today's context
is closely tied to students’ mastery of key
competencies that facilitate the effective
development of language, communication skills,
and other abilities essential for the 21st century.
Among these competencies, developing critical
thinking skills as the highest level of cognitive
activity retains its particular significance.
However, psychologists have highlighted that
feelings of anxiety, arising from various
circumstances and particularly exacerbated by
the ongoing war, can impede an individual's
capacity for effective learning in general and
critical thinking in particular. Even in times of
peace, anxiety has been recognized as a
detrimental factor affecting decision-making
abilities and hindering efficient acquisition of
knowledge and development of cognitive skills
(Tanveer, 2007; Woldeab & Brothen, 2019).
The move to emergency remote teaching in
response to country-wide crisis, once again
forced educators to consider the principles of
student autonomy and the development of critical
thinking skills. Any kind of crisis in general and
the war specifically brings a range of negative
emotions, including anxiety and tension, fear,
and despair. Therefore, the formation of
appropriate learning trajectories and the
development of flexible forms of assessing skills
that contribute to reducing learners’ feelings of
anxiety are among the top priorities for
educators. This is especially relevant during the
examination period, when one of the stress
factors that can negatively affect the
psychological state and health of students is final
examination, which inherently contains an
element of uncertainty primarily due to the
unknown outcome. Students need a sense of
physical and psychological safety for learning to
occur, since fear and anxiety undermine
cognitive capacity and short circuit the learning
process (Darling-Hammond et al., 2020).
The purpose of the article is to synthesize the
findings of a three-year experience of
implementing the prepared speaking part of the
summative assessment, developed in order to
enhance students’ exam concentration and raise
the level of their achievements via alleviating
exam anxiety. Specifically, it aims to describe the
format of the newly introduced prepared
speaking format of the ESP speaking exam for
the 4th-year students majoring in “Physics and
Astronomy” at the Bachelor’s level in Ukraine,
the experience of using a set of questioning
guidelines exploiting the revised Bloom’s
taxonomy, as well as to study the level of
students’ motivation to perform the prepared
speaking task. Under this study, it is tempting to
believe that the effectiveness of using Bloom's
Taxonomy within a student-centered approach is
as effective as using it for teachers’ educational
aims.
Bilonozhko, N., Syzenko, A., Chernyshova, S. / Volume 12 - Issue 72: 101-111 / December, 2023
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Literature review
There is already a great deal of research dwelling
into different aspects of online learning. Recent
studies have demonstrated that at least one-third
of the students suffered from anxiety during the
early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic (Deng et
al., 2021; Jehi et al., 2022). Existing studies on
epidemics indicate that while lockdowns and
quarantines are essential, they can lead to
negative psychological effects like depression
and anxiety. Students, especially, have been
heavily affected due to pre-existing academic
and psychosocial stressors, such as assessments.
Lockdowns exacerbated these challenges,
intensifying mental health issues such as
depression, increased anxiety, and sleep
disorders. Studies on the effects of online
learning on students in Ukraine confirm this
trend where almost 60% of student population
surveyed acknowledged having psychological
problems (Krylova-Grek & Shyshkina, 2021).
Studies conclude that higher education
institutions should take action to ensure the
safety and the physical, social, and mental
wellbeing of the students (Jehi et al., 2022) and
implement long-term policies and programs to
target the source of the students’ mental health
issues. (Deng et al., 2021).
The forced shift to online learning as a result of
the pandemic has eventually had a somewhat
positive impact on the quality of online
instruction and on the variety of digital tools
aimed to facilitate the process of teaching,
learning, and assessment. Latest studies suggest
the growth in demand for online learning has
forced institutions to invest in preparation of
many more instructors to be able to teach online
and facilitate the shift face-to-face dynamics to
the online experience that has proved to differ
significantly (Ragan et al., 2023).
In 2022, Ukrainian higher education institutions
shifted from face-to-face or blended to fully
remote instruction termed as emergency remote
teaching to ensure their students continue to
obtain the required education while being
protected them from the full-fledged military
invasion. Emergency remote teaching is
described by Hodges et al. (2020) as a
“temporary shift of instructional delivery to an
alternate delivery mode due to crisis
circumstances”. The sudden shift to online
learning, combined with lifestyle changes and
uncertainties, likely heightened anxiety levels.
The issue of assessment of learning, especially
when it comes to summative assessment has long
been associated with increased risk of anxiety
(Birenbaum, 2007, Woldeab & Brothen, 2019).
The majority of researchers concur that anxiety
is an individual psychological trait, manifesting
as a predisposition toward experiencing anxious
states in anticipation of unfavourable outcomes.
Anxiety, in psychological terms, is an emotional
state arising from potential unexpected
situations; both the delay or disruption of
pleasant events and the anticipation of unpleasant
ones (Stukalo & Simakhova, 2020). In the
educational context within this socio-political
landscape, the issue of assessment anxiety gains
prominence as students undergo significant stress
and apprehension before and during exams.
Anxiety is a powerful instrument able to block
the process of cognition which is of paramount
importance in the learning process. Thus,
educators and scholars face the challenge of how
to alleviate heightened assessment-related
anxiety, organize learning and exam preparation
effectively, manage learning in challenging
circumstances, and enhance the development of
critical thinking skills. It is noted that anxiety
levels have an impact on the successful
completion of tasks and hinder students' critical
thinking abilities.
Based on this concerning assertion, educators
need to find the ways of creating friendly
examination environment that will support the
effectiveness of the cognitive process and,
moreover, help develop the critical thinking of
students in the educational process as a whole,
and specifically in foreign language learning. In
the following part of the review, we are going to
look critically at the role of cognition, emotional
intelligence and critical thinking in learning.
Cognition. Cognitive processes deal with such
functions of our brain as thinking, paying
attention, processing information, and
remembering things. In other words they include
attention, memory, logic, reasoning, and visual
and auditory processing. Attention which
presents a complex construct in psychology, can
be considered as one of the most influential
cognitive processes that interacts with
perception, memory, behavioural planning or
actions, linguistic production, and spatial
orientation (Zimmermann et al., 2015). Owing to
attentional skills a person can select and integrate
all the relevant information he/she perceives,
coming from different sensory channels, and
associate them with conceptually superior
categories (Konrad et al., 2005). In other words,
attention allows students to concentrate on a
particular activity or stimulus instead of
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processing everything around a person. (Cherry,
2022). In case of anxiety, it becomes quite
problematic to keep attention or to be
concentrated on the task being performed.
Therefore, in accordance with the purpose of this
study, we are interested in focused attention and
sustained attention. Focusing actively on one
thing helps students avoid distraction of the
stimuli caused by anxiety. Sustained attention
intensifies this process prolonging the time of
attention concentration on the subject matter
(Cohen, 2014).
Emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence
(EI) can also be considered as significant factor
influenced upon cognition process. EI is the
ability to identify, understand, and use emotions
positively to manage anxiety, communicate well,
empathize, overcome issues, solve problems, and
manage conflicts (Drigas & Papoutsi, 2018).
Researchers underline that EI is important for
children because what is perceived as not
interesting, without an affective value, does not
become a subject of attention. (Vuontela et al.,
2013). For adults, it has as much significance,
according to Szczygieł & Mikolajczak (2017), as
it provides a person with a better inner world to
cope with the outside world. The results of
studies suggest that negative mood and
anticipated fear are two factors of the relationship
between EI and risk-taking in decision-making
processes among adults (Panno at al., 2015).
Research has also shown this positive correlation
between EI and cognitive processes, and this
demonstrates the important role that EI plays
with emotion and cognition, thus, empowering
individuals and their personality and benefitting
the whole society (Mayer et al., 2008).
For our study, it is important that EI engages high
cognitive functions such as attention, memory,
regulation, decision-making and others that
empower students manage with anxiety.
Critical thinking. Previous studies confirm that
critical and analytical thinking remains one of the
most sought-after competences among graduates
in Ukraine (Syzenko & Diachkova (2020). A
plethora of distinguished scholars conducted
theoretical and practical research into the
phenomenon of critical thinking from
psychological and pedagogical perspectives
(Wood, 1991; Anderson & Krathwohl; 2001,
Halpern, 2003, Temple, 2005; Butler, 2012;
Wilson, 2016). Viewing critical thinking as a
modern form of logical activity, many
researchers associate its development with the
importance of questioning, recognizing it as a
valid teaching and learning strategy (Graesser &
Olde, 2003; Chin & Osborne, 2008; Jiang, 2014;
Davoudi & Sadeghi, 2015). In higher education
setting, critical thinking is one of the most
important skills as it enables university graduates
to become effective contributors in the global
workforce (Liu, Frankel & Roohr, 2014;
Parashchuk, 2017).
Among scholars who have laid out the
foundations of the study into development of
critical thinking skills, Benjamin Bloom (1956)
particularly stands out due to his taxonomy that
presents an organised classification comprising
six cognitive levels of lower-order and higher-
order cognitive categories.
An updated version of this cognitive skill
hierarchy was introduced by L. Anderson, a
student of the renowned B. Bloom, and
D. Krathwohl, a partner during development of
the original taxonomy from 1950-1970. The
updated Anderson and Krathwohl’s taxonomy
(2001) closely resembles the original one but
incorporates semantic changes: verbs replaced
nouns in level names, and the names of the fifth
and sixth levels underwent changes. In this study,
we use this revised taxonomy with the following
six levels: 1) remember, 2) understand, 3) apply,
4) analyse, 5) evaluate, and 6) create. It is
believed that intellectual skills linked to
memorisation, understanding, and application
encompass a lower cognitive level, whereas
skills involving analysis, evaluation, and the
creation of new knowledge are considered
higher-order cognitive skills.
It is noteworthy that originally B.Bloom
developed his taxonomy not for assessment
purposes but as a system to classify skills and
knowledge based on learning objectives, aiding
examiners in crafting assessment materials.
These days, the application of Bloom’s
taxonomy is mostly geared towards the
continuous development of students’ critical
thinking skills, where adeptly crafted questions
by instructors play a pivotal role, aligning with
specific levels of students’ cognitive
engagement. Our analysis of the aforementioned
studies indicates that educators are well-
equipped with a methodological foundation for
both valid questioning in the learning process and
assessing students’ overall cognitive level during
examinations.
As put by McKenzie (2003), questions and
questioning are critical human technologies that
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empower young individuals to solve problems,
make informed decisions, and excel in tests and
life challenges. Researcher highlights the
significance of fostering students’ questioning
skills. As a result, it is worth looking into how we
can achieve a transition from the well-established
practice of exploiting cognitive strategies, used
by educators, to a more learner-centred approach,
that would foster students’ autonomy in posing
questions and, consequently, further develop
their critical thinking skills.
Despite significant contributions made into the
fields covered in our literature review, new
challenges call for practical changes into the
assessment practices without compromising the
quality of education, but at the same time
providing the support required for tackling
increased levels of anxiety prompted by difficult
circumstances.
Methodology
The methodology used in the study is a
qualitative longitudinal research approach using
a case study method, with semi-structured
interviews, a survey, and observation as data
collection methods.
Theoretical analyses of the scientific literature on
methodological, pedagogical, philosophical, and
medical issues aim to define ways of alleviating
anxiety in learners and opportunities to foster
their critical thinking skills.
A learner-centered teaching method is used to
design the procedure of the prepared speaking
format with necessary guidelines for students.
Shifting the focus to the learners' needs leads to
active learning by doing as a group of the
students majoring in Physics and Astronomy was
engaged in utilizing the newly designed format.
The group discussion technique was used to
check the quality and number of the developed
pre-examination tasks and their sequencing,
deepening students' engagement in problem-
solving and exploiting cognitive levels of
Bloom’s taxonomy. As a result, the number of
pre-examination tasks was shortened from 10 to
6, the instructions became more precise. The
most important issue that needed to be proved by
these students was about their perception of the
number of various types of questions they were
requested to put up within the pre-examination
tasks. As the format was approved by the
students, it was suggested as a part of speaking
exam called prepared speaking to all groups of 4-
year students of Faculty of Physics.
A longitudinal study was implemented with the
respondents – repeated 3 times – over a year-long
period, using the same speaking exam format.
Thus, a longitudinal survey was undertaken with
4th-year students in December 2021, 2022, and
2023 to track their satisfaction with the suggested
speaking exam format and its influence upon
exam preparation intensity.
To evaluate the effectiveness of the prepared
speaking format in alleviating anxiety and
fostering critical thinking skills, to invest in
understanding students' emotions, feelings, and
expectations, in 2023 a more intensive reflective
approach is used. Observations, a student survey,
and semi-structured interviews shed light on the
current students’ perceptions and attitudes
towards the suggested examination approach by
collecting, analyzing, and presenting feedback
from them. Feedback was implemented via
survey answers, email, and video format.
In this context, qualitative data with open-ended
questions requires also collecting quantitative
metrics with multiple choice survey, ranking the
answers. Both types of data help create a rigorous
picture of the outcomes and validity of the
problem under consideration.
Results and discussion
At Taras Shevchenko National University of
Kyiv (Ukraine), teaching foreign languages at
Bachelor level at non-linguistic faculties follows
a comprehensive approach based on the
principles of student-centered approach and
applies a mix of technologies, pedagogical
methods and techniques that take into account the
professional needs of future graduates and,
within the Ukrainian context, the social and
political conditions that impact the organisation
of the educational process.
Based on the fundamental provisions of the
Concept of Foreign Language Learning by
Students of Non-Specialized Faculties and
Institutes (Taras Shevchenko National
University of Kyiv, 2020), the Common
European Framework of Reference for
Languages: Learning, teaching, assessment of
the Council of Europe (Council of Europe, 2020),
and the syllabus of the discipline ‘Foreign
Language (English)’ within the educational-
professional program Physics and Astronomy
(2021), the format of the oral part of the
examination was updated to increase the
psychological safety of the students.
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In general, the final assessment of 4th-year
Bachelor students consists of written and oral
parts. The oral part encompassed the traditional
summative examination format: 1) introductory
conversation in a teacher-student mode;
2) description of suggested images;
3) unprepared speaking on the topic of the
examination card.
As political situation in the country changed
dramatically because of military actions, some
serious distractors interfered into the learning
process. Moreover, there were some obstacles in
delivering information towards the students,
arising the feelings of uncertainty. So an urgent
necessity to arm students with new learning tools
was evident. To avoid distractors, to diminish
anxiety, to concentrate their attention on the
process of exam preparation encouraging their
heuristic abilities leading to critical thinking, the
format of oral exam was reconsidered. The
revised version has two parts: unprepared
speaking and prepared speaking. The term
‘prepared’ means the performance of a set of pre-
examination tasks that must be completed by
students independently and submitted for
evaluation 5 days before the exam. This format is
based on students’ ability to work with the
scientific literature autonomously, distinguish
key words and formulate questions, grouped into
three categories based on complexity
(Bilonozhko, 2023). Firstly, students are given a
list of a fairly wide range of speaking topics in
physics, optics, astronomy, from which they
choose a topic for prepared speaking, that
interests them, and select the necessary textual
material from primary sources meeting the length
requirement of 600 words. In other words,
students should compile the logical text using
materials from textbooks, scientific articles,
encyclopedias, etc. The principle of scientificity
is realized through focusing on working with
professional English literature to compile
relevant contextual content related to the chosen
topic with references to primary sources. The
following criteria have been developed for
evaluating the content of the text on the chosen
topic: a) correspondence to the chosen topic;
b) structure and coherence of the text; c) meeting
the text length requirement of 600 words.
Compiling the text and finding out the key words
is followed by the completion of tasks related to
the prepared text: 1) translation of ten sentences
with key words; 3) making up 10 general,
special, alternative and tag questions; 4) asking
10 open and closed questions. All these tasks
serve as a preparatory stage to the final task that
involves formulating ten questions with regard to
the text at lower and higher cognitive levels:
LOT – low order thinking, HOT – high order
thinking, following Bloom's Taxonomy levels:
remembering, understanding, applying,
analyzing, synthesizing, and evaluating.
Evaluation criteria for the questions tasks
include: a) grammatical accuracy; b) word order
in the sentence; c) use of the appropriate
auxiliary verb; d) lexical correspondence; and
d) use of all the suggested types of questions.
The hierarchy of the tasks’ sequence is based on
the philosophy ‘from simple to complex’
principle. Cognitive questions of the preceding
level lay the groundwork for creating higher-
level cognitive questions. Lower-level cognitive
questions facilitate precise retrieval and
processing of information. Higher-level
cognitive questions serve as practical tools to
encourage critical thinking and enhance
cognitive skills, as they demand reasoning,
analysis, synthesis, and decision-making in their
responses.
Students’ guidelines. Students are provided with
three sets of guidelines, the relevance of which
stems from several factors. They are essential
due to the peculiarities of the educational process
organization, influenced by external factors such
as air raid alarms, disruptions in the internet
connection or complete lack of internet when a
person is in a shelter. As a result, during online
sessions, not all the information conveyed by the
instructor reaches the students. The feeling of
uncertainty gives rise to anxiety. To operate
effectively in such situation is the purpose of the
guidelines.
The first guideline outlines students’ actions
during the exam preparation and exam
procedure. It provides information about
consultation dates and time, an algorithm for
students’ actions, phone numbers, email
addresses, and deadlines for completing the
prepared speaking tasks.
The second guideline explains the structure of the
tasks, which includes a sequence of assignments
that the student must complete independently
within the framework of preparation for the
prepared speaking part and submit to the
instructor.
The third guideline pertains to the levels of
Bloom's Taxonomy and examples of question
templates corresponding to each level. Using this
guideline, students formulate questions of both
lower and higher levels of cognitive activity. It
should be noted that some examples for the
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guidelines were independently sourced by
students from websites on their own initiative.
As it was mentioned in the Methodology section,
the validity of the designed tasks for the prepared
speaking part of the final exam was being
checked in autumn 2021. While completing these
tasks, a group of 17 students from Faculty of
Physics was invited to provide feedback and
discuss their progress and performance. As a
result, the number of tasks was shortened to six
with reformulated instructions. The text length
requirement was extended from 300–400 words
to 600 words as students needed more
information included in their text to have the
opportunity to ask questions. The aim of the next
step undertaken was to check how this format
would be evaluated by other lecturers. A sample
of tasks was introduced to the English teachers of
Faculty of Radio Physics, Electronics and
Computer Systems (FRECS) who evaluated the
validity of tasks succession and attested that they
would work effectively during the pre-
examination and examination process.
The results of exams in 2022 and 2023 (taken by
120 and 90 students) proved the outcomes of the
pilot study in 2021.
Dealing with descriptive analysis a definite
number of stages of prepared speaking exam
implementation has been defined. The following
table brings an extra light in terms of the above
mentioned aspects.
Table 1.
Stages of prepared speaking exam implementation
№
Stage
Faculty and form of feedback
Students’ feedback
1
Piloting:
Autumn
2021
17 students of Faculty of Physics. Group discussion
Expressed positive attitude to the format initiating
to create the sample of the paper with the layout
and the example of the performed tasks as well as
the Students‘ guidelines on Bloom’s taxonomy
stems’ questions.
2
ESP exam:
2021
4th year students of Faculty of
Physics. Group discussion organized
autonomously by the monitors of
the groups. The generalized critical
opinions were sent via emails.
Students liked working in this format. The main
advantages are the presence of a creative approach
(but at the same time, the text could be used ready-
made, and not composed by oneself); a wide
choice of topics (students noted that they were
pleased to choose a topic that is close to their
scientific interests). Among the shortcomings,
students indicated the small volume of the text
requirements: 300-400 words: it is not enough for
such a number of questions, so the questions often
turned out to be similar in content.
3
ESP exam:
2022
4th year students of Faculty of
Physics (all groups), 1 group of
FRECS. Very short closed questions by the
examiners; random open questions
because of the intensive military
attacks.
Students expressed positive attitude to the format
without any corrections. Satisfied with the requirements of 600 words-
volume of the compiled text.
4
ESP exam:
2023
4th year students of Faculty of
Physics (all groups) and 2 groups
of FRECS. Survey, semi-structured interview.
Totally approved the previous format. Expressed
their opinions with positive emotions. Sent their
feedbacks via texting, emailing, filming. Some of
the students attracted examiners attention with
their deep evaluation of the impact of questioning
on their cognitive process and were asked to
describe their experience in the form of the written
feedback.
Observations and students’ feedback.
Observations during the examination period of
academic years 2021, 2022, and 2023
demonstrated that this format of preparation for
oral examination received positive feedback
from students of various language proficiency
levels. Examiners observed confidence and
lexical competence in the prepared speaking part
of the exam. The presence of highly emotional
speech while communicating on the topic of
prepared speaking is the sign of their deep tasks
concentration in the pre-examination period. So
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such cognitive functions as focused and
sustained types of attention on the tasks have led
to the improved performance, absence of anxiety.
Students reported that they were offered a
sufficient number of examination topics to
choose from, a well-structured and diverse set of
tasks involving well-known types of questions as
a prerequisite to higher cognitive questions.
In the survey of 2023, the vast majority of
students (95%) mentioned improved preparation
for the examination because of high level of
motivation to gain better grades and clearly
directed actions. Almost 70 % of students
surveyed reported total concentration on the
tasks, absence of stress during the preparation
stage and at the examination.
In the semi-structured interviews conducted with
twenty-five students, there were two main
questions:
1) How do you find the prepared speaking
format?
2) Which of the questions you formulated are
the most interesting?
Answering the second question, 23 students out
of 25 immediately mentioned HOT Questions of
Analyses and Evaluation levels, two students
marked open questions. Answering the first
question, the respondents underlined the
importance of possibility to work with the topic
of their scientific interests, “feeling better
prepared and more knowledgeable in the topic”,
and “enjoying the preparation stage”. All the
interviewees mentioned the positive impact of
preparation on the development of their critical
thinking, while one student reported that
“thinking about the questions, I better understood
the connection between the concepts of Physics,
which I may not have been fully aware of before.
Therefore, specifically in my case, HOT
questions helped understand deeper the
connection between the physical phenomena”.
Teachers’ training. On the initiative of the
Deputy director of the Institute of philology, one-
hour workshop was designed for the Heads of
Foreign languages departments of the university
to promote teachers’ awareness of the new
format of the exam containing the prepared
speaking part. The workshop comprised the
following stages:
− introduction based on the importance of
questioning for scientists as well as for
students and teachers in the learning process;
− presentation of the principles of prepared
speaking with trajectory on succession of the
tasks that are based on the previous
experience of the presenter;
− analysis of the sample of the prepared
speaking task;
− reflection and discussion on how this
approach fosters students’ critical thinking
skills, which was the main purpose of the
workshop.
Teachers were invited to experience this format
in their groups of students.
Following this experience, methodical
recommendations were published, containing the
needs analysis template, examples of completed
students works and tables with questions stems
(Bilonozhko, 2022). They will be useful both for
English language instructors at higher education
institutions and students.
Suggestions. As the central part of the prepared
speaking exam format is Bloom’s taxonomy
questioning, the findings of the study have led us
to the following suggestions:
1. ESP exam questions should refer to both low
and high cognitive levels.
2. Similar implementation ought to be
conducted on the exam format of other
specialties of English for Specific Purposes.
3. The same research ought to be conducted
referring to whether the teachers implement
the cognitive domains of Bloom’s
Taxonomy in both assessing the students and
teaching them independently asking
questions leading to critical thinking
development.
4. Similar research can be conducted on how
wide the scientific culture of asking
questions is, and what strategies can
encourage students to ask questions of high
cognitive levels as well as how teachers can
also be encouraged to develop students’
attitudes to asking questions.
5. Special teacher training should be conducted
to raise teachers' awareness on the cognitive
levels of taxonomy.
Conclusions
As a result of this study some very important
conclusions have been made on the following
issues:
Incorporating prepared speaking format into
summative oral assessment revealed itself as an
effective way of optimizing learning potential of
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students because 1) each student was reached
even if his location appeared to be in the remote
area; 2) papers with the tasks were done strongly
according to the schedule as a sign of effective
self-organization; 3) the sequence of designed
tasks owing to their reproducibility and
replicability manifested its significance in
encouraging students and pushing them to
achieve impactful results, led to the successful
coping with the difficulties in creating higher
cognitive questions. As far as attention function
is concerned, the strategy for achievement serves
as a motivational factor, making this work
engaging and encouraging students towards
effective performance.
Observation of the emotions students revealed
during semi structured interview, witnessed the
highly positive perception and satisfaction with
the process of exam preparation and exam itself.
Reproducibility of this format validates and
verifies the robustness and reliability of the study
outcomes. Moreover, this way of teaching has
shown the possibility to use Bloom’s taxonomy
not only within the teacher-centered approach
but also proved that the same questioning
techniques that were developed for teachers can
be exploited by students, enhancing their critical
thinking.
Another research task has been put forward: to
generalize the experience of bringing up the
scientific personality of students developing their
questioning competence at Physics faculty
following the well-known Einstein’s ‘never stop
questioning’ principle.
We believe that this format of the oral
examination in the context of emergency remote
teaching is designed to meet the principles of
scientific rigor, autonomy, academic integrity,
critical thinking, and creativity that should form
a solid background for the examination
philosophy in higher education institutions.
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