An article on revised Benjamin Bloom's Taxonomy

Title : Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy of Educational Objectives

P. SRINIVASAN
Lecturer, Dept. of Education,
Tamil University, Thanjavur

1. INTRODUCTION




Aims serves as the light house to which education is directed. The systematically developed aims are operationalised through goals and objectives by educational administrators and teachers. For a professional teacher, objectives are important. An objective may be defined as “a statement describing the post-instructional behaviour of the learners at the end of a period of learning”. Objectives are useful for the teacher to attain the expected behavioural outcomes. Whether the teacher is a student teacher or a professional teacher he / she is expected to follow objective based instruction rather than content based.
Normally objective for classroom transaction are written based upon Benjamin Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. This taxonomy is an outcome of research by Benjamin Bloom, Krathwohl and etal in 1956. This outcome of that research which has come as taxonomy of educational objectives can be given as like this.

Educational Objectives

Cognitive Domain Affective Domain Psychomotor Domain
Knowledge Receiving Imitation
Understanding Responding Manipulation
Application Valuing Precision
Analysis Organisation Articulation
Synthesis Characterisation Naturalisaton
Evaluation


2. THREE BASES

Instructional objectives are based on three domains viz cognitive, affective and psychomotor. Cognitive domain deals with cognition. Cognition refers to the mental processes involved in gaining knowledge and comprehension, including thinking, knowing, remembering, judging and problem solving. These are higher level functions of the brain and encompass language, imagination, perception and planning. The categories in this domain are knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation.
Next is affective domain. The affective domain includes factors such as motivation, attitudes and values. The categories in this domain are receiving, responding, valuing, organisation and categorization.
The last domain is psychomotor domain. Psychomotor domain includes physical movement, coordination and motor skills areas. The categories in this domain are imitation, manipulation, precision, articulation and naturalization. The instructional objectives are written with the above mentioned classification by Benjamin Bloom.

3. REVISION IN COGNITIVE DOMAIN

Till now we are following the categories knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation in the cognitive domain for planning the instruction. However Anderson and Krathwohl (2001) have revised the above said categories

Revised taxonomy of the cognitive domain
Anderson and Krathwohl (2001)
In the new categories, following changes has been taken place from the old version.
Evaluation Creating
Synthesis Evaluating
Analysis Analysing
Application Applying
Comprehension understanding
Knowledge Remembering
4. REASONS FOR CHANGE

The change has been effected for the following reasons.
 The names of six major categories were changed from noun to verb forms like knowledge to remembering, comprehension to understanding etc
 As the taxonomy reflects different forms of thinking and thinking is an active process verbs were more accurate than noun
 The subcategories of the six major categories were also replaced by verbs

5. SUB CATEGORIES

Now let us discuss each category with its new subcategories

A. Remembering
Remembering is recalling information. The learner is able to recall, restate and remember learned information. The subcategories are
Recognising
Listing
Describing
Identifying
Retrieving
Naming
Locating
Finding

B. Understanding
The learner grasps the meaning of information by interpreting and translating what has been learned. The subcategories are
Interpreting
Exemplifying
Summarizing
Inferring
Paraphrasing
Classifying
Comparing
Explaining

C. Applying
The learner makes use of information in a context different from the one in which it was learned. The subcategories are
Implementing
Carrying out
Using
Executing

D. Analysing
The learner breaks learned information into its parts to best understand that information. The subcategories are
Comparing
Organising
Deconstructing
Attributing
Outlining
Finding
Structuring
Integrating

E. Evaluating
The learner makes decisions based on in-depth reflection, criticism and assessment. The subcategories are
Checking
Hypothesizing
Critiquing
Experimenting
Judging
Testing
Defecting
Monitoring

F. Creating
The learner creates new ideas and information using what has been previously learned. The subcategories are
Designing
Constructing
Planning
Producing
Inventing
Devising
Making

6. EDUCATIONAL IMPLICATIONS

The change in the terminologies in categories and subcategories has been more useful in planning the instruction. Following are the educational implication for this change.
 Classroom transaction can be made more effective if objectives are written based upon the new terminologies since it is based on verbs rather than nouns
 The new terminologies can be authentic tool for curriculum construction
 These terminologies are worthwhile in measurement and evaluation
 Easily applied to all levels of schooling
 Teacher educators can implement these new terminologies in practicing the would be teachers so that, the future teachers are also trained in these area
Reference
www.swanhillsc.vic.edu.au/home/midyears/toolbox/blooms/revisedbloomsverbs.doc