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Anderson and Krathwohl’s revision of Bloom’s taxonomy (2001)

Bloom’s taxonomy (1956) has been refined and developed into a twodimensional framework using six cognitive processes and four knowledge categories. There is an emphasis on aligning learning objectives with learning activities and assessment.

Gouge and Yates’ Arts Project taxonomies of arts reasoning and thinking skills (2002)

A matrix of Piaget’s levels (concrete, concrete transitional and formal operational thinking) and reasoning skills is used to create educational objectives for the visual arts, music and drama.

Description and evaluation of the instructional design frameworks

Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives: cognitive domain

Description and intended use

This well-known taxonomy was produced in 1956 by a group of college and university examiners with the initial aims of promoting ‘the exchange of test materials and ideas about testing’ and of ‘stimulating research on examining and on the relations between examining and education’ (Bloom, 1956, p. 4). Broader aims of improving communication and practice among educators were also identified. The authors claimed that the taxonomy was a means of classifying intended behaviours ‘related to mental acts or thinking’ occurring ‘as a result of educational experiences’ (1956, p. 12). They intended it to be a useful tool for educators – readily communicable; comprehensive; capable of stimulating thought about educational problems; and widely accepted by curriculum designers, teachers, administrators and researchers.

Bloom’s taxonomy consists of six major categories and has a varying amount of detail in the form of sub-categories. The basic structure is shown in table 3.1. Bloom’s group provided many illustrative examples of actual test items within each category and sub-category, but these are not included here.

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Table 3.1. Levels of detail in Bloom’s taxonomy (cognitive domain)

Intellectual abilities and skills

Evaluation:	judgments in terms of	internal evidence
		external criteria

Synthesis:

production of

Analysis: of

Application:

a unique communication

aplan

aset of abstract notions elements

organisational principles

Comprehension: translation from

interpretation extrapolation

Knowledge of: specifics

ways and means of dealing with specifics

the universals and abstracts in a field

one level of abstraction to another

one symbolic form to another form or vice versa

one verbal form to another

terminology specific facts conventions

trends and sequences classification and categories criteria

methodology

principles and generalisations theories and structures

The starting point for the group’s work was educational practice rather than educational or psychological theory. The group found that no single theory of learning ‘accounted for the varieties of behaviours represented in the educational objectives we attempted to classify’ (1956, p. 17). Nevertheless, they tried to order the major categories in terms of complexity and noted a possible association between levels of consciousness and complexity: ‘it appears that as the behaviors become more complex, the individual is more aware of their existence’ (1956, p. 19).

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According to Bloom, the principle of ordering categories by complexity created a hierarchy in the sense that ‘each classification within it demands the skills and abilities which are lower in the classification order’. For example, application is above comprehension in the hierarchy and ‘to apply something requires ‘‘comprehension’’ of the method, theory, principle, or abstraction applied’ (1956, p. 120). More fundamentally, the exercise of any intellectual ability or skill, whether it involves comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis or evaluation, logically depends on the availability of content in the form of knowledge.

Bloom’s group worked according to the following guiding principles (1956, pp. 13–14):

•The major distinctions between classes should reflect . . . the distinctions teachers make among student behaviours.

•The taxonomy should be logically developed and internally consistent.

•The taxonomy should be consistent with our present understanding of psychological phenomena.

•The classification should be a purely descriptive scheme in which every type of educational goal can be represented in a relatively neutral fashion.

The group had initially planned to create ‘a complete taxonomy in three major parts – the cognitive, the affective, and the psychomotor domains’. Their decision to limit their first published taxonomy to the cognitive domain was taken on largely pragmatic grounds. When the affective domain taxonomy was published in 1964, the authors acknowledged considerable overlap between the two taxonomies: ‘The fact that we attempt to analyze the affective area separately from the cognitive is not intended to suggest that there is a fundamental separation. There is none’ (Krathwohl, Bloom and Masia, 1964, p. 45). Nevertheless, there is (understandably) a strong emphasis on verbally expressed ideas throughout the cognitive taxonomy and an explicit exclusion of synthesis activities which ‘emphasize expression of emotional impulses and physical movements, rather than organization of ideas’ (Bloom, 1956, p. 165).

As can be seen in table 3.1, as well as by the number of pages devoted to it in Bloom (1956), the taxonomic category where least detail is provided is application. Bloom says that application is ‘the use of

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abstractions in particular and concrete situations and may include general ideas, rules or procedures, generalised methods, technical principles, ideas, and theories which must be remembered and applied’ (1956, p. 205). Bloom stresses that it cannot be assessed unless new and meaningful situations are provided in which the student has to restructure a problem, work out how best to respond and thereby demonstrate transfer.

It is worth asking whether metacognitive processes are included within the taxonomy, especially as the word ‘metacognition’ did not exist in 1956. This turns out not to be a problem. When the Bloom taxonomic categories are applied to self-knowledge and selfmonitoring, the components of metacognition (such as analysing and evaluating one’s own thinking) can be identified. Bloom does explicitly value self-regulation.

Evaluation

Bloom’s taxonomy is based on clear definitions and provides a coherent framework for classifying thinking and learning outcomes, even though some category boundaries are fuzzy. Bloom and his team claimed to have achieved a high level of agreement through discussion, but Wood found that teachers using the taxonomy to classify examination questions found it difficult to make clear distinctions between the higher-order categories, especially between analysis and evaluation (Wood, 1977).

The taxonomy promotes the use of clear statements of educational objectives, even though a term like ‘analysis’ may mean different things in different contexts. Bloom did not intend the component processes identified by the taxonomy to convey the full meaning of complex tasks which require the orchestration of thinking, but believed that it is often helpful to draw attention to those processes.

The taxonomic categories are meant to reflect task complexity, albeit with considerable overlap between categories. Empirical work over the years has provided modest support for Bloom’s proposed order of levels of complexity, although some studies have shown that ‘evaluation’ is not more complex than ‘synthesis’ (Kreitzer and Madaus, 1994). A number of authors have criticised the taxonomy for implying that evaluation is the most valuable (and most complex)

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type of human activity, whereas lower-level skills such as ‘application’ are less valuable to society. Indeed Ormell (1974) proposed that the idea of a cumulative hierarchy between categories should be abandoned and replaced by a set of six parallel taxonomic categories. It is reasonable to conclude that Bloom’s taxonomy does not have a consistent hierarchical structure of intellectual skills and abilities, except for the dependence of all on memory.

Potentially, the taxonomy is applicable in all contexts of teaching and learning, including non-verbal as well as verbal areas. Feelings, movements and what is seen can be remembered, comprehended, applied, analysed, synthesised and evaluated just as much as ideas expressed in language. Both covert and overt ‘behaviours’ can be classified using Bloom’s taxonomy.

As Bloom intended, the taxonomy is either neutral or explicit about educational values. When its authors are explicit about values they celebrate transferable learning, creative talent, freedom of thought and expression, self-regulation, intellectual honesty and wisdom.

Bloom’s taxonomy is compatible with well-supported psychological knowledge and theory and has stimulated further theory-building and research. In some ways Bloom himself was taking important steps towards theory-building, by organising educational ideas in ways that help explain individual and group differences in thinking and learning. It is rather surprising that cognitive psychology has largely ignored him, even though large areas of the taxonomy have since become fashionable areas of psychological and neuroscientific research.

Paul (1985, p. 37) praises Bloom for encouraging critical thinking through ‘mindful analysis, synthesis and evaluation’, while taking him to task for implying that knowledge does not presuppose understanding and the active use of other critical thinking abilities. It is unfortunate that what Paul describes as ‘a remarkable tour de force, a groundbreaking work filled with seminal insights into cognitive processes and their interrelations’ (Paul, 1985, p. 39) has sometimes been interpreted and applied in one-dimensional and teacher-centred ways. This may in part be due to the author’s decision to limit the first taxonomy to the cognitive domain. Bloom’s cognitive domain taxonomy emphasises the structure of cognition rather than the processes of cognitive

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construction and the affective and social dimensions of learning. What seems to be missing from the pioneering cognitive, affective and psychomotor taxonomies produced by Bloom and his associates is a convincing explanation of how all three are integrated in the human experience of living, thinking, feeling and learning.

Yet Bloom wanted teachers to encourage creativity rather than reduce teaching to fragmented mechanical procedures. The shift in instructional practice away from reliance on simple transmission of facts towards higher-order thinking and problem-solving is one that still needs as much impetus as Bloom sought to give it in 1956.

The taxonomy has certainly proved to be meaningful and useful to teachers and other educational professionals, although its impact in curriculum planning, examining and research has probably been greater than its active use by teachers and very much greater than its explicit use by learners. It is not too complex for everyday classroom use. Hannah and Michaelis (1977) took the Bloom categories and provided lists of verbs for describing behaviours which can be classified under each heading: an approach which helps potential users understand the framework. The cognitive domain taxonomy still acts as an important stimulus to thinking about curriculum design, teaching, learning and assessment. Its categories can be recognised in many later adaptations and extensions, including the revision of Bloom’s taxonomy by Anderson and Krathwohl (2001).

Summary: Bloom

				Relevance for teachers
Purpose and structure		Some key features		and learning
Main purpose(s):		Terminology:		Intended audience:
•	to stimulate discussion	•	clear definitions	•	curriculum planners
	and research about	•	easily understood	•	examiners
	examining			•	teachers
•	to improve
	communication and
	practice among
	educators