Bloom Taxonomy

Benjamin Bloom, was born in Lansford, Penn., and received a B.A. from Pennsylvania State University in 1935 and an M.S. from Pennsylvania State, also in 1935. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1942. In 1948, he and a group of colleagues with the American Psychological Association began discussions that led to the taxonomy of educational goals. The committee was appointed to create taxonomies in cognitive, affective, and psychomotor domains. They finished the cognitive portion of their work in 1956 and found that over 95 % of the test questions students encounter require them to think only at the lowest possible level...the recall of information. (University of Chicago Chronicle, 1999) Benjamin Bloom was fortunate enough to be the first author on the first publication, thereby forever linking the committee's work to his name in the public mind.

The cognitive domain involves knowledge and the development of intellectual skills. 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 starting from the simplest behavior, knowledge, to the most complex, evaluation. The levels, in addition to clarifying instructional objectives, may be used to provide a basis for questioning that ensures that students progress to the highest level of understanding. The keywords listed after the category definition represents some of the tasks the student will accomplish in each of the categories.

1. Knowledge: Remembering or recognizing something previously encountered without necessarily understanding, using, or changing it. Keywords: defines, describes, identifies, knows, matches, names..

2. Comprehension: Understanding the material being communicated without necessarily relating it to anything else. Keywords: Comprehends converts, distinguishes, estimates, and explains.

3. Application: Using general concept to solve a particular problem. Keywords: Applies changes, computes, demonstrates, discovers, manipulates, modifies, predicts, prepares.

4. Analysis: Breaking something down into parts. Keywords: analyzes, breaks down, compares, contrasts, diagrams, identifies, illustrates.

5. Synthesis: Creating something new by combining different ideas. Keywords: categorizes, combines, compiles, creates, devises, designs, explains, generates, modifies., organizes.

6. Evaluation: Judging the value of materials or methods as they might be applied in a particular situation. Keywords: Appraises compares, concludes, contrasts, criticizes, critiques, evaluates, explains, interprets, and summarizes.

(Bloom, Krathwohl, Masia 1964)

This domain appears to be the one that gets the greatest attention within the educational system. In the Cadillac Middle School, Junior High, and High School the teachers have this domain laminated and posted in their rooms as a quick reference tool. Teachers can use the keywords and target their questions toward a particular level. The prepared teacher will have thought about what questions they are going to ask the students during the planning stage. By doing this planning the teacher can make sure they are covering all of the stages and not just concentrating on one in particular.

The second domain studied was the affective domain and was published in 1964. This domain is concerned with the students' interests, attitudes, opinions, appreciations, values, and emotional sets. (Taxonomy of Educational Objectives)

1. Receiving: The student passively attends to particular phenomena or stimuli such as classroom activities or textbooks. The teacher's concern is that the student's attention is focused. Intended outcomes include the pupil's awareness that a thing exists.

2. Responding: The student actively participates. The pupil not only attends to the stimulus but reacts in some way.

3. Valuing: The worth a student attaches to a particular object, phenomenon, or behavior ranging from acceptance to commitment.

4. Organization. Bringing together different values, resolving conflicts among them, and starting to build an internally consistent value system--comparing, relating and synthesizing values and developing a philosophy of life.

5. Characterization by a Value or Value Complex. At this level, the person has held a value system that has controlled his behavior for a sufficiently long time that a characteristic "life style" has been developed.

(Bloom, Krathwohl, Masia 1964)

This domain seems to be overlooked by many teachers. When I interviewed the middle school and high school teachers they all claimed to follow Bloom's taxonomy. However, when I asked them if they took into account the affective domain, they all told me that they did not. The reasons varied but my impression was that it wasn't something the teachers were concerned with. This surprised me because if the student isn't actively participating into the lesson then the student is probably not getting as much out of the lesson as the teacher planned.

The third domain the committee was supposed to research was the psychomotor domain. The committee decided not to respond to this domain because they contended the committee had little experience teaching manual skills since they taught at the college level. Researchers such as E.J. Simpson (1972), A.J. Harrow (1972) and R.H. Dave (1970) developed competing systems for the psychomotor domain.

According to Simpson (1972) these are the categories for the psychomotor domain. The keywords listed after the category definition represents some of the tasks the student will accomplish in each of the categories.

1. Imitation: repeating an act that has been demonstrated or explained and it includes trial and error until an appropriate response is achieved. Keywords: begin, assemble, attempt, copy, duplicate, follow, mimic.

2. Manipulation: individual continues to practice a particular skill or sequence until it becomes habitual and the action can be performed with some confidence and proficiency. Keywords: same as Imitation

3. Precision: Proficiency is indicated by a quick, smooth, accurate performance, requiring a minimum of energy. Keywords: Same as previous two categories

4. Articulation: The skills are so well developed that the individual can modify movement patterns to fit special requirements or to meet a problem situation. Keywords: adapt, alter, change, reorganize, revise

5. Naturalization: The individual begins to experiment, creating new motor acts or ways of manipulating materials out of understandings,

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