Bloom’s TaxonomyBenjamin Samuel Bloom (1913-1999)

Background: In 1956, eight years after Benjamin Bloom and a group of educators first began their work of classifying educational goals and objectives, “Bloom’s Taxonomy” was published. This framework includes a taxonomy of three domains:

1) The Cognitive Domain is a knowledge-based domain, consisting of six levels. This domain deals with the development of ascending levels of intellectual abilities and skills. It is the most pervasive in curriculum development and provides the clearest definition of educational goals expressed in terms of descriptions of student behavior.

2) The Affective Domain is an attitudinal-based domain, consisting of five levels. This domain describes levels of the internalization process of students’ interests, attitudes, values, appreciations, and behavior. This domain is harder to classify and test because hidden internalized feelings and emotions are as important as more testable obvious behavior.

3) The Psychomotor Domain is a skills-based domain, consisting of six levels. This domain deals with physical activity requiring coordination. This domain is important in vocational schools but is often ignored by secondary schools and colleges.

Note: Other educational taxonomies and hierarchical systems have been developed, but Bloom’s Taxonomy remains the de facto standard after nearly fifty years.

The Cognitive Domain is a tiered model that classifies thinking according to six cognitive levels of complexity. The levels have often been depicted as a stairway since lower-level thinking skills must be acquired before moving on to the next level or higher-order thinking skills.

1) Knowledge describes the ability to retrieve, recognize, and recall relevant material from long-term memory. Knowledge can be a foundation for learning since it provides a basis for higher levels of thinking.

2) Comprehension is the ability to construct meaning from oral, written, and visual messages through interpreting, exemplifying, classifying, summarizing, inferring, comparing, and explaining.

3) Application is the ability to use learned material in new situations. Application involves using information, ideas, and skills to solve problems.

4) Analysis is the ability of breaking material into parts and then determining how the parts relate to one another. The purpose of analysis is differentiation and organization.

5) Synthesis is the ability to put elements together to form a new whole in a unique form. This level of cognitive domain is where innovation typically takes place.

6) Evaluation is the highest order thinking skill classified in Bloom’s Taxonomy. Evaluation involves reviewing and asserting evidence, facts, and ideas, and then making appropriate statements and judgments.

Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy (RBT): During the 1990s, Lorin Anderson, a former student of Benjamin Bloom, updated the taxonomy to add greater relevance for 21st century students and teachers.

The graphic is a representation of the NEW verbage associated with the long familiar Bloom's Taxonomy. Note the change from Nouns to Verbs [e.g., Application to Applying] to describe the different levels of the taxonomy. Note that the top two levels are essentially exchanged from the Old to the New version.

Note: The revision includes fairly minor, yet significant, changes in the areas of terminology, structure, and emphasis. The reason for this revision was that Bloom’s Taxonomy was being used by countless groups never considered an audience for the original publication.