From Simple to Complex: A SOLO-Based Analysis of Students Research Tasks Responses

Abstract

Critical learning plays a pivotal role in students’ learning experiences. It allows them to assess situations, tasks, and experiences rigorously and be able to arrive at well-reasoned conclusions. This study examines the extent of student responses in research-related tasks, highlighting the dominance of Unistructural responses, which consist of isolated, unconnected ideas, across different tasks. With a striking dearth of responses at the Multistructural and Relational levels, the findings show that the majority of students exhibited poor knowledge and predominantly operated at the Unistructural level. The analysis specifically shows that while students could recognize and articulate discrete knowledge components, they struggled to connect these ideas or do deeper critical analysis. The absence of responses at high cognitive level, such as Abstract, highlights a significant weakness in students' ability to apply and integrate knowledge in a relational context.