Bernadette A.

Divinagracia
Bloom's taxonomy is a set of three hierarchical models used to classify educational
learning objectives into levels of complexity and specificity. The three lists cover the
learning objectives in cognitive, affective and sensory domains.

Bloom's Taxonomy

The original taxonomy named the different structures based on the nature of the learning
task (knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation). The
revised taxonomy is based on what we want learners to do, which is more congruent with
the nature and purpose of objectives. On the left we see a multiple choice test most often
used to assess for remembering. Below we see two learners creating a new idea
cooperatively.

Objectives describe what learners are expected to do (new or differently) as a result of

instruction. Furthermore, Krathwohl2 believes that creating new ideas is a higher order
cognitive process than evaluating what someone else has created. Hence the revised
taxonomy ranks create higher than evaluate: remember, understand, apply, analyze,
evaluate, and create. While the major categories are generally hierarchical3 it seems to me
that the sub-categories are not.

Here is a chart from Forehand (2010, p. 3)1 showing the subtle differences between the
two versions of the taxonomy.

Terminology changes: The graphic is a representation of the NEW verbage associated

with the long familiar bloom's taxonomy. note the change from nouns to verbs (e.g.,
application to applying) to describe the different levels of the taxonomy. note that the top
two levels are essentially exchanged from the old to the new version (schultz, 2005).
evaluation moved from the top to evaluating in the second from the top. synthesis moved
from second on top to the top as creating.
source:www.odu/educ/llschult/blooms_taxonomy.html
Krathwohl's Table 3 (2002, p. 215)2, the taxonomy of cognitive processes and tasks, is
reproduced below. There are taxonomies for the affective and psychomotor domains as
well. (These are explained in different Cells in the CORAL Collection.)

Table 3 Structure of the Cognitive Process Dimension of the Revised Taxonomy 1.02

1.0 Remember - Retrieving relevant knowledge from long-term memory.

1.1 Recognizing
1.2 Recalling

2.0 Understand - Determining the meaning of instructional messages, including oral,

written, and graphic communication.

2.1 Interpreting
2.2 Exemplifying
2.3 Classifying
2.4 Summarizing
2.5 Inferring
2.6 Comparing
2.7 Explaining

3.0 Apply - Carrying out or using a procedure in a given situation.

3.1 Executing
3.2 Implementing

4.0 Analyze - Breaking material into its constituent parts and detecting how the parts
relate to one another and to an overall structure or purpose.

4.1 Differentiating
4.2 Organizing
4.3 Attributing

5.0 Evaluate - Making judgments based on criteria and standards.

5.1 Checking
5.2 Critiquing

6.0 Create - Putting elements together to form a novel, coherent whole or make an
original product.

6.1 Generating
6.2 Planning
6.3 Producing
The five top categories (Understand, Apply, Analyze, Evaluate, and Create) might also be
considered "deep learning" while Remember might be considered more congruent with
"surface learning" (See the CORAL Collection Cell Surface and Deep Learning).

If you want your learners to identify the salient information in a patient case, to organize
them, and then to explain how they are possibly related you are asking them to analyze. If
you want your learners to produce a care or treatment plan for a new (to them) patient
then you are asking them to create. If you are asking them definitions either in a multiple
choice item format or in a short answer format you are asking them to remember.

Educators and teachers often make the mistake of assuming that those who can remember
facts can then also complete those more important higher order tasks. We often fall into
this trap because people who can analyze, evaluate, and create (higher order learning
tasks) can also remember the details and facts. NO. That is a logical fallacy and an
empirical delusion. Just because learners can remember (especially if they can only
recognize as in multiple choice questions) does not mean that they can complete higher
order tasks such as analyzing or evaluating.

Bloom's Taxonomy was created in 1956 under the leadership of educational

psychologist Dr Benjamin Bloom in order to promote higher forms of thinking
in education, such as analyzing and evaluating concepts, processes,
procedures, and principles , rather than just remembering facts (rote
learning). It is most often used when designing educational, training, and
learning processes.

The Three Domains of Learning

The committee identified three domains of educational activities
or learning (Bloom, et al. 1956):

o Cognitive: mental skills (knowledge)

o Affective: growth in feelings or emotional areas (attitude or self)

o Psychomotor: manual or physical skills (skills)

Since the work was produced by higher education, the words tend to be a
little bigger than we normally use. Domains may be thought of as categories.
Instructional designers, trainers, and educators often refer to these three
categories as KSA (Knowledge [cognitive], Skills [psychomotor],
and Attitudes [affective]). This taxonomy of learning behaviors may be
thought of as “the goals of the learning process.” That is, after a learning
episode, the learner should have acquired a new skill, knowledge, and/or
attitude.

While the committee produced an elaborate compilation for the cognitive and
affective domains, they omitted the psychomotor domain. Their explanation
for this oversight was that they have little experience in teaching manual
skills within the college level. However, there have been at least three
psychomotor models created by other researchers.

Their compilation divides the three domains into subdivisions, starting from
the simplest cognitive process or behavior to the most complex. The divisions
outlined are not absolutes and there are other systems or hierarchies that
have been devised, such as the Structure of Observed Learning
Outcome (SOLO). However, Bloom's taxonomy is easily understood and is
probably the most widely applied one in use today.

C o g n i ti v e D o m a i n
The cognitive domain involves knowledge and the development of intellectual
skills (Bloom, 1956). This includes the recall or recognition of specific facts,
procedural patterns, and concepts that serve in the development of
intellectual abilities and skills. There are six major categories of cognitive an
processes, starting from the simplest to the most complex (see the table
below for an in-depth coverage of each category):

o Knowledge

o Comprehension

o Application

o Analysis

o Synthesis

o Evaluation

The categories can be thought of as degrees of difficulties. That is, the first
ones must normally be mastered before the next one can take place.

B l o o m ' s R e v i s e d Ta x o n o m y
Lorin Anderson, a former student of Bloom, and David Krathwohl revisited the
cognitive domain in the mid-nineties and made some changes, with perhaps
the three most prominent ones being (Anderson, Krathwohl, Airasian,
Cruikshank, Mayer, Pintrich, Raths, Wittrock, 2000):

o changing the names in the six categories from noun to verb forms

o rearranging them as shown in the chart below

o creating a processes and levels of knowledge matrix

The chart shown below compares the original taxonomy with the revised one:
 This new taxonomy reflects a more active form of thinking and is perhaps
more accurate. The new version of Bloom's Taxonomy, with examples and
keywords is shown below, while the old version may be found here
Ta b l e o f t h e R e v i s e d C o g n i ti v e D o m a i n

Examples, key words (verbs), and technologies for

Category
learning (activities)

Examples: Recite a policy. Quote prices from

memory to a customer. Recite the safety rules.

Remembering: Recall or Key Words: defines, describes, identifies,

retrieve previous learned knows, labels, lists, matches, names, outlines,
information. recalls, recognizes, reproduces, selects, states

Technologies: book marking, flash cards, rote

learning based on repetition, reading

Understanding: Examples: Rewrite the principles of test writing.

Comprehending the meaning, Explain in one's own words the steps for
translation, interpolation, and performing a complex task. Translate an equation
interpretation of instructions and into a computer spreadsheet.
problems. State a problem in
one's own words. Key Words: comprehends, converts, defends,
distinguishes, estimates, explains, extends,
generalizes, gives an example, infers, interprets,
paraphrases, predicts, rewrites, summarizes,
translates

Technologies: create an analogy, participating

in cooperative learning , taking notes, storytelling,
 Internet search

Examples: Use a manual to calculate an

employee's vacation time. Apply laws of statistics
Applying: Use a concept in a to evaluate the reliability of a written test.
new situation or unprompted
Key Words: applies, changes, computes,
use of an abstraction. Applies
constructs, demonstrates, discovers,
what was learned in the
manipulates, modifies, operates, predicts,
classroom into novel situations
prepares, produces, relates, shows, solves, uses
in the work place.
Technologies: collaborative learning , create a
process, blog, practice

Examples: Troubleshoot a piece of equipment by

using logical deduction. Recognize logical
fallacies in reasoning. Gathers information from a
department and selects the required tasks for
Analyzing: Separates material training.
or concepts into component
parts so that its organizational Key Words: analyzes, breaks down, compares,
structure may be understood. contrasts, diagrams, deconstructs, differentiates,
Distinguishes between facts and discriminates, distinguishes, identifies,
inferences. illustrates, infers, outlines, relates, selects,
separates

Technologies: Fishbowls , debating, questioning

what happened, run a test

Examples: Select the most effective solution.

Hire the most qualified candidate. Explain and
justify a new budget.

Evaluating: Make judgments Key Words: appraises, compares, concludes,

about the value of ideas or contrasts, criticizes, critiques, defends,
materials. describes, discriminates, evaluates, explains,
interprets, justifies, relates, summarizes,
supports

Technologies: survey, blogging

Creating: Builds a structure or Examples: Write a company operations or

 process manual. Design a machine to perform a
specific task. Integrates training from several
sources to solve a problem. Revises and process
to improve the outcome.
pattern from diverse elements.
Put parts together to form a Key Words: categorizes, combines, compiles,
whole, with emphasis on composes, creates, devises, designs, explains,
creating a new meaning or generates, modifies, organizes, plans,
structure. rearranges, reconstructs, relates, reorganizes,
revises, rewrites, summarizes, tells, writes

Technologies: Create a new model, write an

essay, network with others

C o g n i ti v e P r o c e s s e s a n d L e v e l s o f K n o w l e d g e
Matrix
Bloom's Revised Taxonomy not only improved the usability of it by using
action words, but added a cognitive and knowledge matrix.

While Bloom's original cognitive taxonomy did mention three levels of

knowledge or products that could be processed, they were not discussed
very much and remained one-dimensional:

o Factual - The basic elements students must know to be acquainted with a discipline
or solve problems.

o Conceptual – The interrelationships among the basic elements within a larger

structure that enable them to function together.

o Procedural - How to do something, methods of inquiry, and criteria for using skills,
algorithms, techniques, and methods.

In Krathwohl and Anderson's revised version, the authors combine the

cognitive processes with the above three levels of knowledge to form a
matrix. In addition, they added another level of knowledge - metacognition:

o Metacognitive – Knowledge of cognition in general, as well as awareness and

knowledge of one’s own cognition.

When the cognitive and knowledge dimensions are arranged in a matrix, as

shown below, it makes a nice performance aid for creating performance
objectives:

The Cognitive Dimension

The Knowledge Dimension Remember Under-stand Apply Analyze Evaluate Create
Factual
Conceptual
Procedural
Metacognitive

However, others have identified five contents or artifacts (Clark, Chopeta,

2004; Clark, Mayer, 2007):

o Facts - Specific and unique data or instance.

o Concepts - A class of items, words, or ideas that are known by a common name,
includes multiple specific examples, shares common features. There are two types of
concepts: concrete and abstract.

o Processes - A flow of events or activities that describe how things work rather than
how to do things. There are normally two types: business processes that describe
work flows and technical processes that describe how things work in equipment or
nature. They may be thought of as the big picture, of how something works.

o Procedures - A series of step-by-step actions and decisions that result in the

achievement of a task. There are two types of actions: linear and branched.

o Principles - Guidelines, rules, and parameters that govern. It includes not only what
should be done, but also what should not be done. Principles allow one to make
predictions and draw implications. Given an effect, one can infer the cause of a
phenomena. Principles are the basic building blocks of causal models or theoretical
models (theories).

Thus, the new matrix would look similar to this:

The Cognitive Dimension

The Knowledge Dimension Remember Under-stand Apply Analyze Evaluate Create

Facts
Concepts
Processes
Procedures
Principles
Metacognitive

An example matrix that has been filled in might look something like this:
The Knowledge
Remember Under-stand Apply Analyze Evaluate Create
Dimension
Facts list para-phrase classify outline rank categorize
Concepts recall explains show contrast criticize modify
Processes outline estimate produce diagram defend design
give an
Procedures reproduce relate identify critique plan
example
different-
Principles state converts solve conclude revise
iates
Meta-cognitive proper use interpret discover infer predict actualize