Taxonomy of Educational Objectives - The Cognitive Domain

The following article is a summary of Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. The Taxonomy was developed in the late 1940s by a group of university examiners - one of whom was Benjamin Bloom of the University of Chicago - for the purpose of facilitating the sharing of test materials. Although developed for a select audience, the Taxonomy became a worldwide phenomenon and was soon part of the everyday vocabulary of educators worldwide. The Taxonomy itself is a hierarchy of behaviorally defined educational outcomes; the six objectives are knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. Despite its popularity, there are many who argue the Taxonomy is philosophically and empirically unsound. Still others suggest it hasn't made a substantial impact on what teachers do in the classroom.

Keywords Analysis; Affective domain; Application; Cognitive domain; Comprehension; Evaluation; Knowledge; Objectives; Synthesis; Taxonomy

Overview

As one historian observes, descriptions of Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives (Taxonomy) usually begin with superlatives (Kreitzer & Madaus, 1994). "Only the tersest, driest, or most academic writing concerning the Taxonomy fails to include a comment about its tremendous impact, utility, fame, publicity, or influence" (p. 64). Indeed, forty years after its original publication, "The Taxonomy of Educational Objectives" has sold more than one million copies and has been translated into more than twenty different languages. It is discussed in nearly every education textbook and has become one of the most frequently cited sources in educational research (Bloom, 1994).

Many point out that frequent reference to a piece of work is an insufficient standard by which to measure its impact as an effective tool (Sosniak, 1994). In other words, although the Taxonomy has become part of the vocabulary of educators, it may be a less central component of their practice. With regard to curriculum development, for example, Sosniak (1994) argues the Taxonomy has become a mere footnote. But a discussion of how the Taxonomy might fall short is premature without first understanding what it was intended to do. As Kreitzer and Madaus (1994) explain, "The authors of the Taxonomy made remarkably modest claims about it" (p. 65).

The idea for an educational taxonomy was first discussed at an informal meeting of university examiners at the 1948 annual conference of the American Psychological Association. The group's original intention was to create a common framework of educational objectives that would facilitate the exchange of test items and materials among university examiners, and stimulate research on the relationship between education and evaluation. The Taxonomy was intended to be "a small volume" for a select audience, but instead turned into a "basic reference for all educators worldwide" (Bloom, 1994, p. 1). The phenomenal popularity of the Taxonomy can only be explained, Bloom himself (1994) argues, "by the fact that it filled a void; it met a previously unmet need for basic, fundamental planning in education. For the first time, educators were able to evaluate the learning of students systematically" (p. 1).

In addition, larger cultural shifts, and changing ideas about the purpose of schooling, helped create an environment receptive to the development of clearly defined educational outcomes (Airasian, 1994). In the 1960s, President Johnson declared a war on poverty, a significant part of which was the investment of federal funds into educational programs for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Along with the funding, however, came an increased emphasis on accountability, "with each program having to be evaluated in terms of students' achievement of the program's objectives" (Airasian, 1994, p. 89). Federally funded programs such as Head Start also signaled a seismic shift in beliefs about teaching and learning, from the notion that students were limited by innate ability to the idea that it is the environment that affects learning most. "Once the notion that most students could learn was accepted, emphasis in testing shifted away from sorting individuals and toward finding ways to enhance and certify student learning" (Airasian, 1994, p. 86). Objectives gave educators a tool to demonstrate student learning and the effectiveness of federally funded programs.

Although the Taxonomy has become known as "Bloom's Taxonomy," Benjamin Bloom - then an examiner at the University of Chicago - was just one of many who contributed to the project. As he himself explains, "the development of the Handbook was truly a group project. It was the direct outgrowth of the thinking of more than thirty persons who attended the various meetings at which the idea of a taxonomy was discussed" (Bloom, 1994, p. 4). Even after the Taxonomy was complete, the group printed a preliminary edition of 1,000 copies and distributed it to professors, teachers, and administrators; their feedback was included in the final version.

The authors of the Taxonomy approached the task of defining and classifying educational outcomes in much the same way that biologists classified living things into the categories phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species (Bloom, 1954). Bloom also likened the process to "the development of a plan for classifying books in a library" (Bloom, 1954, p. 10). The group made it clear that what they intended to classify was the change produced in an individual as a result of participating in an educational experience. In Bloom's (1954) own words, "What we are classifying is the intended behavior of students - the ways in which individuals are to act, think, or feel as a result of participating in some unit of instruction" (p. 12). The outcomes, they believed, reflected changes in behavior that could be observed across different content areas, so that "a single set of classifications should be applicable in all…instances" (Anderson & Sosniak, 1994, p. 12). The group aimed to develop taxonomies in three different domains - the cognitive, affective, and psychomotor domains - but only completed the first two. What follows is a description of the Taxonomy of educational objectives of the cognitive domain.

Description of the Taxonomy

The Taxonomy was developed with several guiding principles in mind, the first of which is reflected in the intention to classify educational objectives as changes in behavior. The authors noticed that teachers spoke about learning in 'nebulous terms', referring to student outcomes as 'understanding', 'comprehension' and 'grasping the core or essence' of something. They wanted to give teachers a tool to speak about outcomes with greater precision, and thus proposed that "virtually all educational objectives…have their counterparts in student behavior" (Bloom, 1994, p. 3).

Although the authors recognized that by defining learning in behavioral terms they were making a value judgment, they strove for impartiality and objectivity to the greatest extent possible. They believed the classification should be "a purely descriptive scheme in which every type of educational goal can be represented in a relatively neutral fashion" (Bloom, 1954, p. 14). In other words, the Taxonomy was not intended to suggest that certain outcomes were better than others, or exclude certain types of outcomes from the Taxonomy altogether.

As the group began to brainstorm lists of educational objectives, they quickly realized that complex behaviors included simpler behaviors. In order to incorporate this relationship into the Taxonomy, they organized their educational objectives as a hierarchy. "Thus our classifications may be said to be in the form where behaviors of type A form one class, behaviors of type AB form another class, while behaviors of type ABC form still another class" (Bloom, 1954, p. 18). The educational process, they concluded, was one of building upon simpler behaviors to form more complex behaviors.

The following six categories form the hierarchy of Bloom's Taxonomy:

1. Knowledge
2. Comprehension
3. Application
4. Analysis
5. Synthesis
6. Evaluation

Before defining each category in greater detail, a fourth guiding principle should be brought to light. Specifically, Bloom and the authors made a distinction between knowledge and the other five objectives of the Taxonomy - which they referred to collectively as skills and abilities. They regarded knowledge - the remembering of information - as a necessary but not sufficient outcome of learning. In other words, knowledge is a prerequisite for other types of outcomes, and not the sole aim of education. "What is needed is some evidence that students can do something with their knowledge, that is, that they can apply the information to new situations and problems" (Anderson & Sosniak, 1994, p. 16). Given the rapidly changing culture of the 20th century, they argued, skills and abilities would help students adapt to new situations more readily than the mere acquisition of information.

The Six Objectives

Knowledge

The first educational objective - knowledge - is defined as "those behaviors and test situations which emphasize remembering, either by recognition or recall, of ideas, material, or phenomena. The behavior expected of a student in the recall situation is very similar to the behavior he was expected to have during the original learning situation" (Bloom, 1954, p. 62). The authors then make a distinction between concrete types of knowledge and more abstract forms of knowledge, which they organize into three separate categories: knowledge of specifics, knowledge of ways and means of dealing with specifics, and knowledge of universals and abstractions in a field. Remembering the exact date of an event is an example of knowledge of specifics, understanding how culture has changed over time is an example of knowledge of ways and means of dealing with specifics, and familiarity with theoretical approaches to education is an example of knowledge of universals and abstractions in a field.

Comprehension

Comprehension, what the authors argue is the largest class of the five skills and abilities, occupies the second rung of the hierarchy. Although the largest, it is also perhaps the least intuitive, since most think of comprehension either in terms of reading comprehension or as complete understanding of a message. Instead, the authors of the Taxonomy define it as "those objectives, behaviors, or responses which represent an understanding of the literal message contained in a communication" (Bloom, 1954, p. 89). Understanding of the literal message is communicated in three ways - the ability to translate the original communication into other terms, the ability to interpret what was said (e.g., understanding the relative importance or interrelationships between ideas expressed), and the ability to extrapolate the information by making inferences or judgments.

Application

Application is relative to comprehension; it requires the skills and abilities of lower classifications, but goes beyond them as well. A student who applies a principle when prompted to do so demonstrates comprehension, but a student who applies a principle in a new situation in which a solution has not been specified is demonstrating application. In other words, application is about transfer of training. The authors argue that developing good problem solving skills, as opposed to learning how to apply specific facts in specific situations, encourages transfer. Being able to discuss current events in relation to principles of civil liberties and civil rights is an example of application.

Analysis

Analysis, requiring even more complex skills than those required in comprehension and application, "emphasizes the breakdown of the material into its constituent parts and the detection of the relationships of the parts and of the way they are organized" (Bloom, 1954, p. 144). When teachers ask students to identify supporting statements and conclusions, for example, or to distinguish fact from opinion, they are asking students to engage in analysis. They further organize this objective into analysis of elements, analysis of relationships, and analysis of organizational principles. The ability to identify a hypothesis is an example of analysis of elements, the ability to detect logical errors in an argument is an example of analysis of relationships, and the ability to infer an author's point of view an example of analysis of organizational principles.

Synthesis

The fifth level of the hierarchy is defined as "the putting together of elements and parts so as to form a whole. This is a process of working with elements, parts, etc., and combining them in such a way as to constitute a pattern or structure not clearly there before" (Bloom, 1954, p. 162). The authors identify synthesis as the educational objective most closely related to creativity, and further delineate it according to three different products of synthesis: a unique communication, a plan or proposed set of operations, or a set of abstract relations. The ability to speak extemporaneously is an illustration of the first product. The ability to develop a lesson plan for an instructional unit is example of the second product, while the ability to develop a theory of learning is an example of the third.

Evaluation

Evaluation sits at the top of the hierarchy because the authors believe it includes behaviors defined in each of the other five categories. In addition to those behaviors, however, it also includes an element of judgment. "Evaluation is defined as the making of judgments about the value, for some purpose, of ideas, works, solutions, methods, material, etc." (Bloom, 1954, p. 185). Even though evaluation is last in the Taxonomy, the authors argue that it shouldn't be viewed as the last step in thinking; "It is quite possible that the evaluative process will in some cases be the prelude to the acquisition of new knowledge" (Bloom, 1954, p. 185). Bloom distinguishes between judgments made in terms of internal evidence - as when a student evaluates whether an author's ideas flow logically from one to the other - or in terms of external criteria - such as when a student evaluates a piece of artwork according to external standards of that style or period of art.

Further Insights

As Bloom himself recognized, "a final criterion is that the taxonomy must be accepted and used by the workers in the field if it is to be regarded as a useful and effective tool. Whether or not it meets this criterion can be determined only after a sufficient amount of time has elapsed" (Bloom, 1954, p. 24). One of the more immediate applications was made by teachers, who quickly recognized that as much as 90% of their instructional time was spent teaching to the lowest level of the Taxonomy, "with very little time spent on the higher mental processes that would enable students to apply their knowledge creatively" (Bloom, 1994, p. 1). Given the test of time however, the Taxonomy might not fare so well. Although widely known, it may be less widely used. The following discusses the impact of the Taxonomy on testing, curriculum development, research, and teacher education.

According to Airasian (1994), "objectives per se have been very influential in the testing and evaluation movement over the past quarter century, but not objectives stated in the form advocated in the Taxonomy" (p. 99). The authors of the Taxonomy intended for their objectives to be tailored to the needs of local teachers and administrators; therefore, the objectives themselves, what Airasian (1994) calls behavioral objectives, were specific and concrete, but broad enough that they still required teachers to further specify them for their own uses. Since that time, testing has become more centralized and standardized; as a result, the "external testing programs [have] served to reduce the incentive for and reliance on locally stated educational objectives" (Airasian, 1994, p. 99).

As stated earlier, the original intention of the Taxonomy was to facilitate the exchange of test materials among university examiners. What it was intended to do beyond this is less clear. Sosniak (1994) argues that its attention to curriculum development was merely an afterthought, and one without much substance. She writes, "the Taxonomy was developed first; attention to curriculum was inserted later" (p. 105). Although the language was changed, it was changed "without considerable rethinking or rewriting of the volume" (Sosniak, 1994, p. 105). As a result, the Taxonomy has not informed the practice of curriculum development to the extent its popularity suggests. In addition, Sosniak (1994) speculates, the trend toward increased specificity and detail in educational objectives has made it burdensome for teachers to incorporate them into lesson plans. Finally, disagreement about the nature of objectives - specifically, whether behavioral-based objectives represent all kinds of learning - limited their use in the classroom.

Moreover, the way the educational community talks about student learning goals has changed over time (Marken & Morrison, 2013). “The same forces that have moved the field away from the term behavioral objectives may also be moving the field away from instructional objectives,” the authors write. “If there has been a shift over the last several decades from a focus on training and instruction to a focus on education and learning, then it is perhaps not surprising to see a reduction in the terms instructional and behavioral objectives and a rise in the use of educational and learning objectives” (Marken & Morrison, 2013).

Anderson (1994) corroborates the limited impact of the Taxonomy on teachers, despite the heavy emphasis teacher education programs place on the use of the Taxonomy in the classroom. Thus, even though teachers learn how to use the Taxonomy to plan lessons, prepare tests, ask questions, and assign classroom tasks, research suggests teachers no longer rely on the Taxonomy once they begin teaching on their own. Studies show most teachers develop lesson plans in terms of what they want students to do (e.g., activities) as opposed to what they want students to learn (e.g. outcomes) (Anderson, 1994). In addition, teachers continue to focus their instruction and evaluation on lower-order thinking; a recent review of over 9,000 test items revealed that over 80% were written at the lowest level of the Taxonomy.

Marzano (2013), in an effort to support the application of the Taxonomy to instructor lesson-planning, published five recommendations for educators seeking to clearly delineate what they want students to learn and know. They are: 1) Create an internally consistent system; 2) Start with objectives that focus on a single unit of instruction; 3) Break the objective into a learning progression; 4) Use the learning progression to establish daily targets; and 5) Translate daily targets into student-friendly language (Marzano, 2013).

Although limited in terms of its impact in the classroom, the Taxonomy has made tremendous contributions to educational research (Anderson, 1994). With regard to teaching methods, for example, significant empirical evidence has been found to support the notion that methods utilizing one-way communication (e.g., lecture) help students achieve lower-order objectives, while methods requiring two-way communication (e.g., group activities) foster higher-order objectives (Anderson, 1994). Similarly, research has shown that real-world experiences facilitate the attainment of higher-order objectives to a greater extent than classroom activities. Within the classroom, descriptive studies reveal that teacher questioning focuses on lower-order objectives, with only 20% of questions actually requiring students to think (Anderson, 1994). This finding is consistent across age, subject matter and ability level.

Viewpoints

While some may quibble about whether the Taxonomy is a useful tool for classroom teachers, others take issue with the Taxonomy itself. The following section will briefly outline some of the philosophical and empirical arguments against the guiding principles and content of the Taxonomy, and end with a word about how the Taxonomy has evolved in response to such criticism.

Furst (1994) summarizes the arguments of many of the critics, taking aim first at the author's claim of impartiality and neutrality. A taxonomy of educational objectives that excludes any and all objectives that cannot be behaviorally specified, he argues, is inherently partial. Secondly, he outlines philosophical arguments against the separation of content from process. Referencing the philosophy of Wittgenstein, who insisted on the study of particulars as opposed to the development of general categories, Furst (1994) stresses the artificiality of such a separation. The process of remembering, for example, cannot be separated from the remembering of some thing (Sockett, as cited in Furst, 1994, p. 30). The separation of the cognitive domain from the affective domain has also garnered critical attention, for parceling out "the world of knowledge from the world of values" (Furst, 1994, p. 32).

In addition to philosophical criticisms of the Taxonomy, others have taken issue with the hierarchical relationship between the objectives. As Bloom explained, the structure of the taxonomy should reflect 'real' relationships, thus researchers should expect to find empirical validation in support of such structure. Kreitzer & Madaus (1994) summarize two types of empirical investigations - those that investigate the reliability of classifications of test items according to taxonomic level and those that investigate the cumulative/hierarchical nature of the taxonomy. In sum, studies show reliability varies according to the level of training, and that despite increasingly sophisticated statistical techniques, no one has been able to validate the hierarchical structure. At the same time, "no one has been able to demonstrate that [the structure] does not exist" (Kreitzer & Madaus, 1994, p. 77). In the end, Kreizter & Madaus (1994) suggest that empirical validation may be unnecessary, especially given that the Taxonomy - validated or not - helped educators "make sense of their world" (p. 78).

A discussion of Bloom's Taxonomy wouldn't be complete without mention of the ways in which it continues to evolve. Just as it has been translated into multiple languages, the Taxonomy has been shaped and reshaped by educators in response to criticisms and the changing educational environment. Anderson and Krathwohl (2001), two of the contributing authors to the original Taxonomy, have developed a revised Taxonomy; the new Taxonomy further delineates knowledge as factual, conceptual, procedural, and metacognitive, partially in response to criticisms of the separation of process from content. (Weisburg [2012] offers reviews of online resources for the revised Taxonomy for those seeking additional information.) In the end, it is the adaptability and evolution of the Taxonomy that may be the greatest measure of its contribution to teaching and learning, rather than the impact of the Taxonomy as it was conceived over fifty years ago.

Terms & Concepts

Analysis: The fourth level of the Taxonomy, defined as breaking information down into its separate elements, and revealing the relationships among them.

Application: The third level of the Taxonomy, defined in terms of the transfer of learning, so that abstractions and principles learned in one situation can then be applied to new problems in new situations.

Comprehension: The second level of the Taxonomy, defined as the understanding of a literal message, and the ability to translate it, interpret it, and extrapolate from it.

Evaluation: The highest level of the Taxonomy of educational objectives; it incorporates behaviors from the five lower levels, but also includes notions of judgment. Judgments can me made relative to internal considerations (e.g., of a piece of work) or relative to external criteria.

Knowledge: The lowest level of the Taxonomy of educational objectives. Defined as the remembering of information, it is a prerequisite for advancement to higher levels. Knowledge is further categorized from the more concrete to the more abstract.

Objectives: The authors of the Taxonomy define objectives as the intended outcomes of participation in an educational activity. Objectives are defined in behavioral terms, so that they represent observable changes as a result of an educational experience.

Synthesis: Synthesis is the fifth level of the Taxonomy and the one authors believe is most closely related to creativity. They define it as the putting together of different elements to form a whole or structure not evident from viewing the elements separately.

Taxonomy: Taxonomy is a system of classification in which the relationships among the items in the taxonomy are not arbitrary, but rather reflect 'real' relationships in the natural world. For example, the ordering of objectives from knowledge to evaluation corresponds to the increasing level of complexity of the objectives.

Bibliography

Airasian, P. (1994). The impact of the Taxonomy on testing and evaluation. In L.W. Anderson & L.A. Sosniak (Eds.), Bloom's Taxonomy: A forty-year retrospective (pp. 1-8). Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.

Anderson, L.W. (1994). Research on teaching and teacher education. In L.W. Anderson & L.A. Sosniak (Eds.), Bloom's Taxonomy: A forty-year retrospective (pp. 1-8). Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.

Bloom, B.S., Englelhart, M.D., Furst, E.J., Hill, W.H., & Krathwohl, D.R. (1954). Taxonomy of educational objectives: The classification of educational goals. Handbook I: Cognitive Domain. New York, NY: Longman, Inc. Bloom, B. S. (1994). Reflections on the development and use of the Taxonomy. In L.W. Anderson & L.A. Sosniak (Eds.), Bloom's Taxonomy: A forty-year retrospective (pp. 1-8). Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.

Furst, E.J. (1994). Bloom's Taxonomy: Philosophical and educational issues. In L.W. Anderson & L.A. Sosniak (Eds.), Bloom's Taxonomy: A forty-year retrospective (pp. 28-40). Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.

Krathwohl, D.R. (2002). A revision of Bloom's Taxonomy: An overview. Theory into Practice, , 212-218. Retrieved May 22, 2007 from EBSCO online database Education Research Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=8550701&site=ehost-live

Kreitzer, A.E., & Madaus, G.F. (1994). Empirical investigations of the hierarchical structure of the taxonomy. In L.W. Anderson & L.A. Sosniak (Eds.), Bloom's Taxonomy: A forty-year retrospective (pp. 28-40). Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.

Marken, J., & Morrison, G. (2013). Objectives over time: a look at four decades of objectives in the educational research literature. Contemporary Educational Technology, 4, 1–14. Retrieved from EBSCO online database Education Research Complete, December 7, 2013. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=90645633&site=ehost-live

Marzano, R.J. (2013). Targets, objectives, standards: How do they fit? Educational Leadership, 70 , 82–83. Retrieved from EBSCO online database Education Research Complete, December 7, 2013. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=87529526&site=ehost-live

Rohwer, W.D., & Sloane, K. (1994). Psychological perspectives. In L.W. Anderson & L.A. Sosniak (Eds.), Bloom's Taxonomy: A forty-year retrospective (pp. 41-63). Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.

Sosniak, L.A. (1994). The Taxonomy, curriculum, and their relations. In L.W. Anderson & L.A. Sosniak (Eds.), Bloom's Taxonomy: A forty-year retrospective (pp. 41-63). Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.

Weisburg, H.K. (2012). Knowledge in bloom. School Librarian's Workshop, 33, 19. Retrieved from EBSCO online database Education Research Complete, December 7, 2013. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=79367341&site=ehost-live

Suggested Reading

Anderson, L.W., & Krathwohl, D.R. (Eds.). (2001). A taxonomy for learning, teaching, and assessing: A revision of Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives. New York, NY: Addison Wesley Longman, Inc.

Bissell, A.N., & Lemons, P.P. (2006). A new method for assessing critical thinking in the classroom. Bioscience, 56, 66-72. Retrieved May 22, 2007 from EBSCO online database Academic Search Premier. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=20028568&site=ehost-live

Lord, R., & Baviskar, S. (2007). Moving students from information recitation to information understanding: Exploring Bloom's Taxonomy in creating science questions. Journal of College Science Teaching, 36, 40-44. Retrieved May 22, 2007 from EBSCO online database Education Research Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=24359802&site=ehost-live

Krathwohl, D.R., Bloom, B.S., & Masia, B.B. (1964). Taxonomy of educational objectives: The classification of educational goals. Handbook II: Affective Domain. New York, NY: David McKay Company, Inc.

Marzono, R.J., & Kendall, J.S. (2007). The new taxonomy of educational objectives. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Roberts, J.L., & Inman, T.F. (2007). Strategies for differentiating instruction: Best practices in the classroom. Waco, TX: Prufrock Press, Inc.