Beyond Curriculum Alignment: Cognitive Demand and the Translation of the Merdeka Curriculum in Islamic Religious Education

The data for this document analysis were drawn from two primary sources. The first was the Merdeka Curriculum, represented by the official CP prescribed in the Decree of the Head of the Agency for Standards, Curriculum, and Educational Assessment (BSKAP) No. 033/H/KR/2022, which served as the units of analysis for the intended curriculum. The second was the official Grade 12 PAI textbook by Chozin and Untoro (2022), from which the learning objectives and assessment tasks were analysed. The textbook was selected because it was developed in accordance with the Merdeka Curriculum, published by the Indonesian Government, and adopted nationally as the principal textbook for senior high schools. For the second set of data, we predominantly focused on three of the textbook's ten chapters: Chapter 1, Patience in Facing Hardship and Adversity; Chapter 2, The Beauty of a Meaningful Life; and Chapter 3, Hypocrisy and Hard-Heartedness Hinder Personal Growth. These chapters were selected because they represent the core domains of PAI, particularly Qur'an–Hadith and Akhlak (Islamic ethics). Their predominantly normative and text-oriented content provides an appropriate basis for examining how the textbook translates the Learning Outcomes of the Merdeka Curriculum into learning objectives and assessment within an active-learning framework.