Bloom’s Taxonomy

Original Bloom’s Taxonomy

Bloom initiated the idea of creating a theoretical model of learning that sought to identify and classify all educational objectives during discussions that took place at the 1948 Convention of the American Psychological Association. Intended for university academics, Bloom hoped that in doing this work he could aid academics in reducing duplicate or redundant test items measuring the same educational learning objectives. Eight years later, Bloom and his colleagues followed through on his initial idea, identifying three domains of educational learning:

• Cognitive: knowledge or thinking
• Affective: attitude or self
• Psychomotor: manual or physical skills

First published in 1956 under the title Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: The Classification of Educational Goals. Handbook I: Cognitive Domain, the cognitive domain of learning was later renamed Bloom’s taxonomy after Bloom as the model’s primary developer. In education, the prime focus has been on Bloom’s cognitive domain of learning.

Bloom’s taxonomy is a hierarchical, six-tiered model of classifying thinking based on specific cognitive levels of complexity, starting from the simplest to most complex. The original six classification levels of the taxonomy are (1) knowledge, (2) comprehension, (3) application, (4) analysis, (5) synthesis, and (6) evaluation. The taxonomy was created to assist both educational researchers and practitioners to understand the fundamental, step-by-step process in which people develop and attain new knowledge and intellectual skills. In other words, the lower classification levels of the taxonomy must be [Page 207]understood and mastered before progressing to the next. Figure 1 presents the taxonomy with definitions and example action verbs for each classification level.

Figure 1 Bloom’s taxonomy of educational learning objectives

Bloom’s levels define the steps in development of thought, and each level increases in cognitive difficulty. As such, educators often interpret the levels of the taxonomy as climbing a staircase of cognitive complexity, from lower to higher ordered thinking.

Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy

In 1995, a former student of Bloom, Lorin W. Anderson, and David R. Krathwohl, a member of the academic team that developed the original Bloom’s taxonomy, assembled and led a team of cognitive psychologists, teacher educators, curriculum specialists, and educational researchers in revising the taxonomy to more accurately represent 21st century teaching and learning. In 2001, Anderson and Krathwohl published their work titled A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching, and Assessing: A Revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. Intentionally designed to assist educators in understanding and implementing standards-based curricula, the revised Bloom’s taxonomy presents a two-dimensional model focused on both cognitive and knowledge processes. Figure 2 presents the revised Bloom’s taxonomy in its most frequently depicted table or matrix form and includes the subcategories of levels for both cognitive and knowledge processes.

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