Students’ Perceived Challenge of Integrated Content and Project-based Instruction in Fostering High Order of Thinking Skills

: A challenge that lecturers in Higher Education face is accomplishing Graduate Competence standards and building learners' high order thinking skills while implementing comprehensive teaching methods. The researcher addressed this challenge in a qualitative study of some courses that were offered by the English Department of IAIN Ponorogo, namely, Curriculum and Material Development and Research on Language Teaching in a semester or six months. The data were gathered through observation and in-depth interview to the lecturers and students of those two courses, then they were analysed by Miles and Huberman’s view of qualitative data analysis comprising three steps namely, data reduction, data presentation, and deduction. The findings showed that the integrated content and project-based instruction encouraged the students to think critically through planning, arguing, stating question and problem investigating, providing solution and creating the product. Furthermore, the findings are significant to provide a framework for educators to implement integrated content and project-based instruction in building students’ high order thinking skills.