Siu, CandyCandySiu2025-01-092025-01-092024https://dspace.usj.edu.mo/handle/123456789/6087Scholars (e.g., Heong et al., 2011; Munzenmaier & Rubin, 2013; Debopriyo, 2014; Stapa & Ibaharim, 2020) have emphasised the significance of higher-order thinking skills, which are said as keys to developing young people’s creativity and problem-solving skills. However, rote memorisation and imitating knowledge might still seem to be emphasised by secondary school educators in Asia (Zhang, 2017; Tung & Chung, 2019). Therefore, investigating the understanding of secondary school teachers about these skills and how they might have done to develop their students these skills is beneficial to 21st-century education. The present study examined the perceptions of fourteen secondary English teachers, around two hundred and forty secondary school students and fifty-five parents about their perceptions of how these skills had been promoted and taught in the target school. Research instruments such as a questionnaire, a twelve-week experiment, pre-and post-tests and interviews were used for the data collection. The findings suggested that the teacher participants might have a limited understanding of the skills and how they could be taught, and that might affect the student participants’ preparation for higher-order thinking acquisition. The experimental student group developed higher synthetical and evaluative skills through learner-centred pedagogy than the control group. Parents in the present study did not think higher-order thinking was essential compared to the lower-order ones. The results indicated potential discrepancies between the curriculum and the expectations among the stakeholder groups. Therefore, the study recommended educational stakeholders might need to provide support for teacher training in both teaching pedagogy and lesson design.text::conference output::conference paper not in proceedings