Taxonomy of Educational Objectives

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The Bloom's Wheel, according to the Bloom's verbs and matching assessment types. The verbs are all feasible and measurable.

The Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, often called Bloom's Taxonomy, is a classification of the different objectives that educators set for students (learning objectives). The taxonomy was proposed in 1956 by Benjamin Bloom, an educational psychologist at the University of Chicago. Bloom's Taxonomy divides educational objectives into three "domains:" Affective, Psychomotor, and Cognitive. Like other taxonomies, Bloom's is hierarchical; meaning that learning at the higher levels is dependent on having attained prerequisite knowledge and skills at lower levels (Orlich, et al. 2004). A goal of Bloom's Taxonomy is to motivate educators to focus on all three domains, creating a more holistic form of education.

Most references to the Bloom's Taxonomy only notice the Cognitive domain. There is also a so far less referred, revised version of the Taxonomy, published in 2001 under the name of "A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching, and Assessing."

Contents

[edit] Affective

Skills in the affective domain describe the way people react emotionally and their ability to feel another living thing's 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:

Receiving
The lowest level; the student passively pays attention. Without this level no learning can occur.
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.
Organizing
The student can put together different values, information, and ideas and accommodate them within his/her own schema; comparing, relating and elaborating on what has been learned.
Characterizing
The student holds a particular value or belief that now exerts influence on his/her behaviour so that it becomes a characteristic.

[edit] Psychomotor

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 and/or development in behavior and/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.[1]

[edit] Cognitive

Categories in the cognitive domain of Bloom's Taxonomy (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001)

Skills in the cognitive domain revolve around knowledge, comprehension, and "thinking through" a particular topic. Traditional education tends to emphasize the skills in this domain, particularly the lower-order objectives.

There are six levels in the taxonomy, moving through the lowest order processes to the highest:

Knowledge
Exhibit memory of previously-learned materials by recalling facts, terms, basic concepts and answers
  • Knowledge of specifics - terminology, specific facts
  • Knowledge of ways and means of dealing with specifics - conventions, trends and sequences, classifications and categories, criteria, methodology
  • Knowledge of the universals and abstractions in a field - principles and generalizations, theories and structures

Questions like: What are the health benefits of eating apples?

Comprehension
Demonstrative understanding of facts and ideas by organizing, comparing, translating, interpreting, giving descriptions, and stating main ideas
  • Translation
  • Interpretation
  • Extrapolation

Questions like: Compare the health benefits of eating apples vs. oranges.

Application
Using new knowledge. Solve problems to new situations by applying acquired knowledge, facts, techniques and rules in a different way

Questions like: Which kinds of apples are best for baking a pie, and why?

Analysis
Examine and break information into parts by identifying motives or causes. Make inferences and find evidence to support generalizations
  • Analysis of elements
  • Analysis of relationships
  • Analysis of organizational principles

Questions like: List four ways of serving foods made with apples and explain which ones have the highest health benefits. Provide references to support your statements.

Synthesis
Compile information together in a different way by combining elements in a new pattern or proposing alternative solutions
  • Production of a unique communication
  • Production of a plan, or proposed set of operations
  • Derivation of a set of abstract relations

Questions like: Convert an "unhealthy" recipe for apple pie to a "healthy" recipe by replacing your choice of ingredients. Explain the health benefits of using the ingredients you chose vs. the original ones.

Evaluation
Present and defend opinions by making judgments about information, validity of ideas or quality of work based on a set of criteria
  • Judgments in terms of internal evidence
  • Judgments in terms of external criteria

Questions like: Do you feel that serving apple pie for an after school snack for children is healthy? Why or why not?

Some critiques of Bloom's Taxonomy's (cognitive domain) admit the existence of these six categories, but question the existence of a sequential, hierarchical link.[2] Also the revised edition of Bloom's taxonomy has moved Synthesis in higher order than Evaluation. 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[citation needed]. This thinking would seem to relate to the method of problem-based learning.

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Learning Domains or Bloom's Taxonomy - Donald R. Clark
  2. ^ Paul, R. (1993). Critical thinking: What every person needs to survive in a rapidly changing world (3rd ed.). Rohnert Park, California: Sonoma State University Press.

[edit] References

  • Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: The Classification of Educational Goals; pp. 201–207; B. S. Bloom (Ed.) Susan Fauer Company, Inc. 1956.
  • A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching, and Assessing — A Revision of Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives; Lorin W. Anderson, David R. Krathwohl, Peter W. Airasian, Kathleen A. Cruikshank, Richard E. Mayer, Paul R. Pintrich, James Raths and Merlin C. Wittrock (Eds.) Addison Wesley Longman, Inc. 2001
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxonomy_of_Educational_Objectives"
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