102	Frameworks for Thinking

Domains addressed:		Presentation:		Contexts:
•	cognitive	•	highly structured	•	education
			exposition	•	work
Broad categories		Theory base:		Pedagogical stance:
covered:		•	behavioural and	•	a transmission model,
•	productive thinking		cognitive psychology,		with some room for
•	building		especially Gagne´		discovery learning
	understanding		and Ausubel		and creativity
•	information-gathering
Classification by:		Values:		Practical
•	cognitive complexity	•	interest is largely	illustrations
•	type of thinking		confined to achieving	for teachers:
			‘engineering’ solutions	•	course material has
					been produced

The practical value of instructional transaction theory has yet to be demonstrated, since the overall evidence for the effectiveness of even the most sophisticated computer-mediated instruction is far from overwhelming. The costs involved in bringing complex interactive and adaptive systems to the market are so high that the idea of modifying them in response to feedback from users and/or learning outcomes is rarely entertained.

Anderson and Krathwohl’s revision of Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives

Description and intended use

This revision of Bloom’s framework for categorising educational objectives was undertaken to refocus attention on Bloom’s cognitive domain taxonomy (1956) and to incorporate the many advances in knowledge since the original publication. The revision took account of international feedback and Bloom, together with several of his co-authors, contributed to several chapters in this work.

The original framework comprised the following six categories: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation.

Instructional design	103

With the exception of knowledge, all categories were labelled as ‘abilities and skills’; and for each of these, knowledge was deemed a prerequisite. The categories were presumed to constitute a cumulative hierarchy; that is, each category was conceived as building on and comprising a more advanced achievement than its predecessor.

The Anderson and Krathwohl revision (2001) retains six cognitive process categories: remember, understand, apply, analyse, evaluate and create. These correspond closely to the Bloom categories, and since the revision draws heavily on Bloom, it is worth identifying the changes incorporated into the revision.

Changes in emphasis

The revision emphasises the use of the taxonomy in course planning, instruction and assessment; and in aligning these three. The authors view this as a major shift from the original handbook, where the focus was on providing extensive examples of test items in each of the six categories. Other significant changes are listed below.

•While the original handbook was developed by college examiners, the revision is designed to be of use by elementary and high-school teachers.

•Sample assessment tasks contained within the revision are designed to illustrate and clarify the meaning of the various sub-categories. They are not included as model test items, as in the original handbook.

•The original handbook made use of test items to clarify the meaning of definitions; in the revision, meanings are clarified through extensive descriptions of sub-categories and case vignette illustrations.

•It is no longer claimed that the process categories form a cumulative hierarchy where the learner cannot move to a higher level without mastering all those below it.

Changes in terminology

•Educational objectives indicate that a student should be able to do something (verb) to or with something (noun). In the original framework, nouns were used to describe the knowledge categories

104 Frameworks for Thinking

(e.g. application). In the revision, the major categories in the cognitive process dimension have been relabelled with verb forms (e.g. apply). Knowledge as a cognitive process is renamed remember. Sub-categories in the cognitive process dimension have also been labelled with verbs, such as checking and critiquing (sub-categories of evaluate).

•The revision has renamed and reorganised the knowledge subcategories as four types of knowledge: factual, conceptual, procedural and metacognitive.

•Two of the major categories in the original framework have been renamed: comprehension has become understand and synthesis has become create.

Changes in structure

Anderson and Krathwohl’s taxonomy (2001) involves a twodimensional table, with six cognitive processes and four types of knowledge. Figure 3.3 summarises the structural changes from Bloom’s original framework; the examples of learning objectives, activities and assessment shown in table 3.9 illustrate why it is useful to separate the ‘knowledge’ and ‘cognitive process’ dimensions.

The revised framework orders the six cognitive process categories according to their degree of complexity. In the original framework, it was claimed that mastery of a more complex category required mastery of all the preceding, less complex categories. Anderson and Krathwohl state that empirical evidence only supports a cumulative hierarchy for Bloom’s middle three categories of comprehension, application and analysis. However, they confirm that the revised framework remains hierarchical in overall complexity.

Throughout the book, the authors use four organising questions to show how the taxonomy framework can be used to support teachers in the classroom.

•The learning question: what is important for students to learn in the limited school and classroom time available?

•The instruction question: how does one plan and deliver instruction that will result in high levels of learning for large numbers of students?

Instructional design	105

Separate Dimension

(Knowledge)

Factual

Types (content) Conceptual

Procedural

Metacognitive

	becomes		Remember
Knowledge
	(in verb form)
			Understand
Comprehension
			Apply
Application
			Analyse
Analysis
			Evaluate
Synthesis
Evaluation			Create
Original			Revised
Framework			Framework

Cognitive process dimension

Fig. 3.3. Structural changes from Bloom to the Anderson and Krathwohl revision.

•The assessment question: how does one select or design assessment instruments and procedures that provide accurate information about how well students are learning?

•The alignment question: how does one ensure that objectives, instruction and assessment are consistent with one another?

A series of vignettes based on actual classroom practice is used to demonstrate how the taxonomy table can be used to aid understanding of the complex nature of classroom instruction. It is claimed that increased understanding of the framework can result in improving the quality of classroom instruction, not least by encouraging teachers to include more complex cognitive process categories in classroom instruction. First and foremost, the taxonomy table should be used as an analytical tool to enable teachers to conduct a deeper examination of the alignment of learning objectives, instruction and assessment.

Table 3.9. Taxonomy table with illustrative examples

Knowledge

Cognitive process dimension

Dimension

Remember

Understand

Apply

Analyse

Evaluate

Create

•

Recognising

•

Interpreting

•

Executing

•

Differentiating

•

Checking

•

Generating

•

Recalling

•

Exemplifying

•

Implementing

•

Organising

•

Critiquing

•

Planning

•

Classifying

•

Attributing

•

Producing

•

Summarising

•

Inferring

•

Comparing

•

Explaining

A. Factual

Example

Example activity

Knowledge

assessment

Prepare and

•

knowledge of

Quiz on

deliver a

•

terminology

addition facts

short talk

knowledge of

about an

specific details

aspect of a

and elements

famous person’s life

B.Conceptual Knowledge

•knowledge of classifications and categories

•knowledge of principles and generalisations

•knowledge of theories, models and structures

C.Procedural Knowledge

•knowledge of subject-specific skills and algorithms

•knowledge of subject-specific techniques and methods

•knowledge of criteria for determining when to use appropriate procedures

Example learning objective

Understand the theory of plate tectonics as an explanation for volcanoes

Example learning	Example
objective	learning
Select sources	objective
of information	Evaluate
related to	food
writing about	commercials
a historical figure	from a set
	of principles

Example learning objective

Gain a working knowledge of memorisation strategies

Example activity

Rewrite a scene from Macbeth in a modern idiom

Example learning objective

Create a commercial that reflects understanding of how commercials are designed to influence people

Table 3.9. (cont.)

Knowledge

Dimension

D.Metacognitive Knowledge

•strategic knowledge

•knowledge about cognitive tasks, including appropriate contextual and conditional knowledge

•self-knowledge

Cognitive process dimension

Remember	Understand	Apply	Analyse	Evaluate	Create
	Example learning			Example learning
	objective			objective
	Understand the			Check the
	efficiency of			influences of
	memorisation			commercials
	strategies			on students’
	(in certain			‘senses’
	circumstances)