Bloom's taxonomy is: a set of three hierarchical models used for classification of educational learning objectives into levels of complexity. And specificity. The three lists cover the: learning objectives in cognitive, affective and "psychomotor domains." The cognitive domain list has been the——primary focus of most traditional education and is frequently used——to structure curriculum learning objectives, "assessments and activities."
The models were named after Benjamin Bloom, who chaired the "committee of educators that devised the taxonomy." He also edited the first volume of the standard text, Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: The Classification of Educational Goals.
History※
The publication of Taxonomy of Educational Objectives followed a series of conferences from 1949——to 1953, which were designed to improve communication between educators on the design of curricula and examinations.
The first volume of the taxonomy, Handbook I: Cognitive was published in 1956. And in 1964 the second volume Handbook II: Affective was published. A revised version of the taxonomy for the cognitive domain was created in 2001.
Cognitive domain (knowledge-based)※
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/72/BloomsTaxonomy.png/170px-BloomsTaxonomy.png)
In the 1956 original version of the taxonomy, "the cognitive domain is broken into the six levels of objectives listed below." In the 2001 revised edition of Bloom's taxonomy, the levels have slightly different names and their order is revised: Remember, Understand, Apply, Analyze, Evaluate, and Create (rather than Synthesize).
- Knowledge of specifics—terminology, specific facts
- Knowledge of ways and means of dealing with specifics—conventions, trends and sequences, classifications and categories
- Knowledge of the universals and abstractions in a field—principles and generalizations, theories and structures
- Analysis of elements
- Analysis of relationships
- Analysis of organization
- Production of a unique communication
- Production of a plan, or proposed set of operations
- Derivation of a set of abstract relations
- Judgments in terms of internal evidence
- Judgments in terms of external criteria
Affective domain (emotion-based)※
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7a/BloomsTaxonomy-Affective_01.png/170px-BloomsTaxonomy-Affective_01.png)
Skills in the affective domain describe the way people react emotionally and their ability to feel other living things' pain or joy. Affective objectives typically target the awareness and growth in attitudes, emotion, and feelings.
There are five levels in the affective domain moving through the lowest-order processes to the highest.
Level | Description |
---|---|
Receiving | The lowest level; the student passively pays attention. Without this level, no learning can occur. Receiving is about the student's memory and recognition as well. |
Responding | The student actively participates in the learning process, not only attends to a stimulus; the student also reacts in some way. |
Valuing | The student attaches a value to an object, phenomenon, or piece of information. The student associates a value or some values to the knowledge they acquired. |
Organizing | The student can put together different values, information, and ideas, and can accommodate them within their own schema; the student is comparing, relating and elaborating on what has been learned. |
Characterizing | The student at this level tries to build abstract knowledge. |
Psychomotor domain (action-based)※
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4d/BloomsTaxonomy-Psychomotor.png/170px-BloomsTaxonomy-Psychomotor.png)
Skills in the psychomotor domain describe the ability to physically manipulate a tool or instrument like a hand or a hammer. Psychomotor objectives usually focus on change or development in behavior or skills.
Bloom and his colleagues never created subcategories for skills in the psychomotor domain. But since then other educators have created their own psychomotor taxonomies. Simpson (1972) proposed a taxonomy of seven levels.
- Detects non-verbal communication cues.
- Estimates where a ball will land after it is thrown and then moves to the correct location to catch the ball.
- Adjusts the heat of the stove to the correct temperature by smell and taste of food.
- Adjusts the height of the forks on a forklift by comparing where the forks are in relation to the pallet.
- chooses
- describes
- detects
- differentiates
- distinguishes
- identifies
- isolates
- relates
- selects
- Knows and acts upon a sequence of steps in a manufacturing process.
- Recognizes his or her abilities and limitations.
- Shows desire to learn a new process (motivation).
- begins
- displays
- explains
- moves
- proceeds
- reacts
- shows
- states
- volunteers
- Performs a mathematical equation as demonstrated.
- Follows instructions to build a model.
- Responds to hand-signals of the instructor while learning to operate a forklift.
- copies
- traces
- follows
- reacts
- reproduces
- responds
- Use a personal computer.
- Repair a leaking tap.
- Drive a car.
- assembles
- calibrates
- constructs
- dismantles
- displays
- fastens
- fixes
- grinds
- heats
- manipulates
- measures
- mends
- mixes
- organizes
- sketches
- Maneuvers a car into a tight parallel parking spot.
- Operates a computer quickly and accurately.
- Displays competence while playing the piano.
- assembles
- calibrates
- constructs
- dismantles
- displays
- fastens
- fixes
- grinds
- heats
- manipulates
- measures
- mends
- mixes
- organizes
- sketches
- Responds effectively to unexpected experiences.
- Modifies instruction to meet the needs of the learners.
- Performs a task with a machine that was not originally intended for that purpose (the machine is not damaged and there is no danger in performing the new task).
- adapts
- alters
- changes
- rearranges
- reorganizes
- revises
- varies
- Constructs a new set or pattern of movements organized around a novel concept or theory.
- Develops a new and comprehensive training program.
- Creates a new gymnastic routine.
- arranges
- builds
- combines
- composes
- constructs
- creates
- designs
- initiates
- makes
- originates
Definition of knowledge※
In the appendix to Handbook I, there is a definition of knowledge which serves as the apex for an alternative, summary classification of the educational goals. This is significant as the taxonomy has been called upon significantly in other fields such as knowledge management, potentially out of context. "Knowledge, as defined here, involves the recall of specifics and universals, the recall of methods and processes, or the recall of a pattern, structure, or setting."
The taxonomy is set out as follows:
- 1.00 Knowledge
- 1.10 Knowledge of specifics
- 1.11 Knowledge of terminology
- 1.12 Knowledge of specific facts
- 1.20 Knowledge of ways and means of dealing with specifics
- 1.21 Knowledge of conventions
- 1.22 Knowledge of trends and sequences
- 1.23 Knowledge of classifications and categories
- 1.24 Knowledge of criteria
- 1.25 Knowledge of methodology
- 1.30 Knowledge of the universals and abstractions in a field
- 1.31 Knowledge of principles and generalizations
- 1.32 Knowledge of theories and structures
Criticism of the taxonomy※
As Morshead (1965) pointed out on the publication of the second volume, the classification was not a properly constructed taxonomy, as it lacked a systematic rationale of construction.
This was subsequently acknowledged in the discussion of the original taxonomy in its 2001 revision, and the taxonomy was reestablished on more systematic lines.
Some critiques of the taxonomy's cognitive domain admit the existence of these six categories. But question the existence of a sequential, hierarchical link. Often, educators view the taxonomy as a hierarchy and may mistakenly dismiss the lowest levels as unworthy of teaching. The learning of the lower levels enables the building of skills in the higher levels of the taxonomy, and in some fields, the most important skills are in the lower levels (such as identification of species of plants and animals in the field of natural history). Instructional scaffolding of higher-level skills from lower-level skills is an application of Vygotskian constructivism.
Some consider the three lowest levels as hierarchically ordered, but the three higher levels as parallel. Others say that it is sometimes better to move to application before introducing concepts, the goal being to create a problem-based learning environment where the real world context comes first and the theory second, to promote the student's grasp of the phenomenon, concept, or event.
The distinction between the categories can be seen as artificial since any given cognitive task may entail a number of processes. It could even be argued that any attempt to nicely categorize cognitive processes into clean, cut-and-dried classifications undermines the holistic, highly connective and interrelated nature of cognition. This is a criticism that can be directed at taxonomies of mental processes in general.
The taxonomy is widely implemented as a hierarchy of verbs, designed to be used when writing learning outcomes, but a 2020 analysis showed that these verb lists showed no consistency between educational institutions, and thus learning outcomes that were mapped to one level of the hierarchy at one educational institution could be mapped to different levels at another institution.
Implications※
Bloom's taxonomy serves as the backbone of many teaching philosophies, in particular, those that lean more towards skills rather than content. These educators view content as a vessel for teaching skills. The emphasis on higher-order thinking inherent in such philosophies is based on the top levels of the taxonomy including application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. Bloom's taxonomy can be used as a teaching tool to help balance evaluative and assessment-based questions in assignments, texts, and class engagements to ensure that all orders of thinking are exercised in students' learning, including aspects of information searching.
Connections between disciplines※
Bloom's taxonomy (and the revised taxonomy) continues to be a source of inspiration for educational philosophy and for developing new teaching strategies. The skill development that takes place at higher orders of thinking interacts well with a developing global focus on multiple literacies and modalities in learning and the emerging field of integrated disciplines. The ability to interface with and create media would draw upon skills from both higher order thinking skills (analysis, creation, and evaluation) and lower order thinking skills (knowledge, comprehension, and application).
Visual interpretations※
Bloom's original taxonomy may not have included verbs or visual representations, but subsequent contributions to the idea have portrayed the ideas visually for researchers, teachers and students.
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Bloom's taxonomy organized radially
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Bloom's revised taxonomy organized as a pyramid of learning levels with explanations of each
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Bloom's taxonomy verbs portrayed as a light bulb
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Bloom's cognitive domain organized as an inverted pyramid
See also※
- DIKW pyramid – Data, information, knowledge, wisdom hierarchy
- Educational psychology – Branch of psychology concerned with the scientific study of human learning
- Educational technology – Use of technology in education to improve learning and teaching
- Fluid and crystallized intelligence – Factors of general intelligence
- Higher-order thinking – Concept in education and education reform
- In Over Our Heads – Book on psychological development by Robert Kegan
- Integrative complexity – Research psychometric
- Know-how – Ability to do somethingPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets
- Ladder of inference – Metaphorical model of cognition and action by Chris Argyris
- Learning cycle – How people learn from experience
- Learning styles – Largely debunked theories that aim to account for differences in individuals' learning
- Mastery learning – Instructional strategy and educational philosophy
- Metacognition – Self-awareness about thinking, higher-order thinking skills
- Model of hierarchical complexity – Framework for scoring how complex a behavior is
- Pedagogy – Theory and practice of education
- Physical education – Educational course related to the physique and care of the body
- Reflective practice – Ability to reflect on one's actions so as to engage in a process of continuous learning
- Rubric (academic) – Scoring guide for assessment
- Structure of observed learning outcome – Model of levels of increasing complexity in understanding
- Wisdom – Ability to think and act using knowledge, experience, understanding, common sense and insight
References※
- ^ Bloom, B. S.; Engelhart, M. D.; Furst, E. J.; Hill, W. H.; Krathwohl, D. R. (1956). Taxonomy of educational objectives: The classification of educational goals. Vol. Handbook I: Cognitive domain. New York: David McKay Company.
- ^ Shane, Harold G. (1981). "Significant writings that have influenced the curriculum: 1906–1981". Phi Delta Kappan. 62 (5): 311–314.
- ^ Bloom et al. 1956, p. 4: "The idea for this classification system was formed at an informal meeting of college examiners attending the 1948 American Psychological Association Convention in Boston. At this meeting, interest was expressed in a theoretical framework which could be used to facilitate communication among examiners.
- ^ Simpson, Elizabeth J. (1966). "The classification of educational objectives: Psychomotor domain". Illinois Journal of Home Economics. 10 (4): 110–144.
- ^ Harrow, Anita J. (1972). A taxonomy of the psychomotor domain: A guide for developing behavioral objectives. New York: David McKay Company.
- ^ Dave, R. H. (1975). Armstrong, R. J. (ed.). Developing and writing behavioral objectives. Tucson: Educational Innovators Press.
- ^ Clark, Donald R. (1999). "Bloom's Taxonomy of Learning Domains". Retrieved 28 Jan 2014.
- ^ Krathwohl, David R. (2002). "A revision of Bloom's taxonomy: An overview". Theory into Practice. 41 (4). Routledge: 212–218. doi:10.1207/s15430421tip4104_2. ISSN 0040-5841. S2CID 13116159.
- ^ Anderson, Lorin W.; Krathwohl, David R., eds. (2001). A taxonomy for learning, teaching, and assessing: A revision of Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives. New York: Longman. ISBN 978-0-8013-1903-7.
- ^ Hoy, Anita Woolfolk (2007). Educational psychology (10th ed.). Boston: Pearson/Allyn and Bacon. pp. 530–531, 545. ISBN 978-0205459469. OCLC 68694368.
- ^ Armstrong, Patricia (2010-06-10). "Bloom's Taxonomy". Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching. Vanderbilt University. Retrieved 29 June 2016.
- ^ Simpson, Elizabeth (1972). Educational objectives in the psychomotor domain (PDF) (Report). Vol. 3. Washington, D.C.: Gryphon House. pp. 25–30. ERIC ED010368. Retrieved 3 April 2018.
- ^ Bloom et al. 1956, p. 201.
- ^ Paul, R. (1993). Critical thinking: what every person needs to survive in a rapidly changing world (3rd ed.). Rohnert Park, CA: Sonoma State University Press.
- ^ Flannery, Maura C. (November 2007). "Observations on biology" (PDF). The American Biology Teacher. 69 (9): 561–564. doi:10.1662/0002-7685(2007)69[561:OOB]2.0.CO;2. S2CID 85828325. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2017-03-06. Retrieved 2017-03-05.
Biology is often referred to as an observational science almost as a slur, with the implication that biologists simply look at the living world without the strong theoretical and mathematic underpinnings of a science like physics. There is the suggestion that observation is easy. Thus biology is viewed as a lightweight science—anyone can do it: just go out and start looking, at birds, at grass, at cells under the microscope. Benjamin Bloom's taxonomy of learning tasks puts observation at the lowest level, with recall of information. This denigration of observation has long bothered me because I see it as often difficult and complex, a skill that needs to be learned and a talent that is much more developed in some.
- ^ Lawler, Susan (26 February 2016). "Identification of animals and plants is an essential skill set". The Conversation. Archived from the original on 17 November 2016. Retrieved 5 March 2017.
Ironically, the dogma that has been so detrimental to field taxonomy is known as Bloom's taxonomy. University lecturers are told to apply an educational theory developed by Benjamin Bloom, which categorises assessment tasks and learning activities into cognitive domains. In Bloom's taxonomy, identifying and naming are at the lowest level of cognitive skills and have been systematically excluded from University degrees because they are considered simplistic.
- ^ Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). "Chapter 6: Interaction between learning and development". Mind in society: the development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. pp. 79–91.
- ^ Keene, Judith; Colvin, John; Sissons, Justine (June 2010) ※. "Mapping student information literacy activity against Bloom's taxonomy of cognitive skills". Journal of Information Literacy. 4 (1): 6–21. doi:10.11645/4.1.189.
When supporting students outside the classroom situation, a subject aware advisor should be capable of spotting mistakes in a student's solution and of analysing these mistakes to identify the difficulty that the student is encountering. Such support can be seen as offering scaffolding in a student's 'zone of proximal development' (Vygotsky, 1978) and exemplified by teaching students to analyse a problem through the identification of the key elements and the relationships between these elements.
- ^ Fadul, J. A. (2009). "Collective Learning: Applying distributed cognition for collective intelligence". The International Journal of Learning. 16 (4): 211–220. doi:10.18848/1447-9494/CGP/v16i04/46223. ISSN 1447-9494.
- ^ Newton, Philip M.; Da Silva, Ana; Peters, Lee George (10 July 2020). "A pragmatic master list of action verbs for Bloom's taxonomy". Frontiers in Education. 5. doi:10.3389/feduc.2020.00107.
- ^ Jansen, B. J.; Booth, D.; Smith, B. (2009). "Using the taxonomy of cognitive learning to model online searching" (PDF). Information Processing & Management. 45 (6): 643–663. doi:10.1016/j.ipm.2009.05.004.
- ^ Kress, G.; Selander, S. (2012). "Multimodal design, learning and cultures of recognition". Internet and Higher Education. 15 (1): 265–268. doi:10.1016/j.iheduc.2011.12.003.
- ^ Paul, R.; Elder, L. (2004). Critical and creative thinking. Dillon Beach, CA: The Foundation for Critical Thinking.
- ^ The New London Group (1996). "A pedagogy of multiliteracies: designing social futures". Harvard Educational Review. 66 (1): 60–93. doi:10.17763/haer.66.1.17370n67v22j160u.
Further reading※
- Bloom, B. S. (1994). "Reflections on the development and use of the taxonomy". In Rehage, Kenneth J.; Anderson, Lorin W.; Sosniak, Lauren A. (eds.). Bloom's taxonomy: A forty-year retrospective. Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education. Vol. 93. Chicago: National Society for the Study of Education. ISSN 1744-7984.
- Clark, Donald R. (1999). "Bloom's Taxonomy of Learning Domains". Retrieved 28 Jan 2014.
- Krathwohl, D. R.; Bloom, B. S.; Masia, B. B. (1964). Taxonomy of educational objectives: The classification of educational goals. Vol. Handbook II: the affective domain. New York: David McKay Company.
- Morshead, Richard W. (1965). "On Taxonomy of educational objectives Handbook II: Affective domain" (PDF). Studies in Philosophy and Education. 4 (1): 164–170. doi:10.1007/bf00373956. hdl:2027.42/43808. S2CID 143935506.
- Orlich, Donald; Harder, Robert; Callahan, Richard; Trevisan, Michael; Brown, Abbie (2004). Teaching strategies: a guide to effective instruction (7th ed.). Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 978-0-6182-9999-7.