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This explorative-descriptive study set out to examine the equivalence among Test of English Proficiency (TOEP) forms, developed by the Indonesian Testing Service Centre (ITSC) and co-founded by The Association for The Teaching of English as a Foreign Language in Indonesia (TEFLIN) and The Association of Psychology in Indonesia. Using a quantitative approach, the researchers collected the data through documenting the responses of those taking TOEP in 2016 and 2017, involving six TOEP forms in 2016 and four TOEP forms in 2017. All the forms were developed using the same test grid and construct to measure the listening and reading skills. The equality among the six forms was tested using the equating technique, which involved (1) the estimation of the item parameter using the Rasch model, (2) examination of the test characteristics curve for each form, and (3) interpretation of results. The results showed that all the TOEP forms used in 2016 and 2017 were equal with one another. It can be concluded then that the developed TOEP forms have the same level of difficulty and ensure justice for all test takers.

The National Examination in Indonesia, which began in 2015, was no longer a determinant of student graduation at the end of the education level. Utilization of the examination results will affect the seriousness of the students in working on it. This study aims to describe the level of seriousness of 12th grade students in working on National Examinations, when it no longer a determinant of graduation by examining teachers and school principals’ point of view. This research is a qualitative study by using the phenomenology approach. Data was collected using focus group discussions (FGD) conducted 3 times in 3 provinces in Indonesia, consisted of Yogyakarta, South Kalimantan and East Nusa Tenggara. FGD participants were 9 high school principals, 9 vice principal of curriculum, and 54 teachers who teach subjects that are tested on national exam. In each province, three schools were selected, consisted of two public schools, and one private school. Data were analyzed using data reduction stages, to find relationships between themes, and verification. The results showed that the motivation of 12th grade students in preparing National Examination were reduced. They no longer focused on preparing the exams, otherwise they preparing themselves for higher education. Furthermore, students tended to select subjects that were easier and the teacher should motivate students harder to prepare for the National Examination.

Statistics is one of the tools to draw generalization in conducting a research. However, university students still face various obstacles during statistics lectures. This study aimed to describe the students’ difficulties in learning statistics and strategies for scaffolding them. It was conducted with 12 international students from different majors who were enrolled in statistics lectures in Graduate School, Yogyakarta State University, Indonesia. It employed qualitative phenomenological research. The Cresswell’s model was used in data analysis covering data reduction, presentation, and verification. The data were collected through interviews and observations during 8 meetings of extra statistics lectures. The results indicated that the students’ obstacles in learning statistics were caused by several factors; they were not enrolled in Mathematics and Statistics lectures during their undergraduate study, and they found it hard to perform computation, run the software, understand mathematical symbols, relate one concept to others in hypothesis testing, and present analysis results in Bahasa. Various scaffolding can be taken by lecturers to overcome these problems.

The study was to describe the implementation of Problem-Based Learning (PBL) toward the improvement of students’ Higher Order Thinking Skill (HOTS) and characters and to describe the obstacles that had been encountered within the implementation. The study was a mixed research that made use of concurrent mixed method design. The population in the study was the students from eight junior high schools that had been selected from six provinces in Indonesia namely the Yogyakarta Special Region, Bengkulu, South Borneo, West Nusa Tenggara, Southeast Sulawesi and Papua. There were 648 students who had been selected randomly from these schools. The researchers conducted the PBL process within the experimental classes and the expository learning process within the eight control classes. The data gathering process was conducted through the test, the self-assessment and the open questionnaire. The quantitative data analysis was conducted inferentially using multivariate and univariate analysis, while the qualitative data analysis was conducted descriptively. The results of the study showed that: (1) the implementation of PBL had been more effective in comparison to the expository one in terms improving the students’ HOTS; (2) the implementation of PBL had not been more effective in comparison to the expository one in terms of improving the students’ characters; and (3) in overall the obstacles that had been encountered within the implementation of PBL process were related to the teachers’ unpreparedness, the time allocation, the unequal students’ input, the students’ learning habits and the difficult assessment.

Higher order thinking skill (HOTS) is one of the students’ abilities that should be developed through teaching and learning. Teachers’ knowledge about HOTS and its teaching and learning tactics is a key to successful education. The purpose of this research is to describe teachers’ knowledge about higher order thinking skills (HOTS). The research involves qualitative study with the phenomenological approach. The research participants are 27 mathematics teachers from state and private junior high schools across 7 provinces in Indonesia. The researcher collected data with a test followed by focus group discussion (FGD) and interviews. The analysis of data involved Bogdan & Biklen model and descriptive statistics for data from the test. The analysis of FGD, and test data intends to get information on 6 sub-themes; teachers’ knowledge about HOTS, importance of HOTS, teaching about HOTS to students, improving students’ HOTS, measuring and assessing HOTS, and teachers’ ability for solving HOTS-based problems. The results indicate that teachers’ knowledge about HOTS, their ability to improve students’ HOTS, solve HOTS-based problems, and measure students' HOTS is still low. There are facts, however, that teachers already understand the importance of HOTS and teaching it by using various innovative learning models. Keywords: HOTS, measurement and assessment, teachers’ knowledge, teaching and learning

International surveys, such as TIMSS and PISA, frequently put Indonesia in the low ranks. It is an indication that the higher-order thinking skills (HOTS) of students in Indonesia are still low. This research aims to analyze students’ difficulties in solving problems that measure HOTS. This is a case study research with a qualitative approach. Participants studied were 93 high school students in grade XI. Data were collected using test instruments that measure HOTS, which was developed based on the standard contents of high school mathematics. The difficulties were analyzed descriptively by observing students’ errors in answering HOTS test items. Students’ errors were classified based on Newman’s Error Procedure (NEP). The result shows that around 8.33% of the students had difficulties in comprehension, 15.59% in transformation, 32.53% in process skills, and 1.34 % in encoding. Keywords: HOTS problem in mathematics, students’ difficulties, case study, Newman’s error procedure.