Text Taxonomy of Bloom
Text Taxonomy of Bloom
Module Detail
Subject Name Education
Course Name Assessment for Learning
Course Code EDU503
Module Name/Title Domain of Learning in revised taxonomy of
objective (2001): cognitive, affective and
psychomotor with respect to the relationship
between educational objective learning experiences
and evaluation
Module Code AFL008
Pre-requisites ……………………..
Learning Outcomes After going through this lesson, the learners will
be able to:
1. Point out the anomalies in earlier Bloom’s
Taxonomy of objectives.
2. Discuss the revised Bloom’s Taxonomy with
respect to cognitive, affective and
psychomotor domains.
3. Analyse the relationship between objectives,
learning experiences and evaluation.
Keywords Bloom’s Taxonomy, Instructional objectives.
2. Development Team
1.0 Introduction
Case Study: Sunil is a young teacher who enters into the teaching
profession. After several days of teaching, he found out that inspite of his
best efforts, students are not responding to the questions that were asked in
the classroom. The knowledge that has been imparted hardly results to into
change in terminal behavior of the students. One day, Mrs. Sudha who was a
senior teacher and having vast experience of teaching, ask Sunil about his
problem. Sunil narrated the episode to Mrs. Sudha. Mrs. Sudha called Sunil
to accompany her in the classroom and observe the process of classroom
teaching. Sunil remain in the classroom for 45 minutes and minutely
observes each and every activity Mrs. Sudha was carrying out in her
classroom. After the class was over she asked Sunil what did he observe.
Sunil replied that he was teaching in the same manner as you were teaching.
What is the difference? Mrs Sudha replied that “teaching-learning process
is a planned activity which needs to be carried out in a systematic,
organized and sequential manner to yield the result”. For teaching-learning
process three essential elements are: (i) educational objectives (ii) learning
experiences and (iii) evaluation. So, it is necessary that these three are
interconnected to each other and oriented towards learner. Sunil asked what
educational objective, learning experience and evaluation and how it is
related to teacher teaching and student learning. Mrs. Sudha explained
about Bloom’s taxonomy (educational objectives) and how it help teacher to
plan teaching activity, learning experiences and evaluate terminal behavior
of the students.
Education is an applied discipline carved out of different disciplines of social
sciences. That’s why, when we study education as a subject as well as a
discipline; we find out that its nature is mixed bag of concrete and abstract
subjects. Education derives its functioning from sociological, psychological
and philosophical bases. If we look from the lenses of psychological base,
role of education is to identify the innate abilities, provide opportunities to
nurture and sharpen them. From the sociological perspective, role of
education is to transform the human into socially adjusted being and from
philosophical point of view education it seeks to answer about reality, values,
knowledge. Contemporary education system especially school education tries
to find answers more from the psychological and sociological perspective
completely ignoring the philosophical questions which are based on human
and humanity. Most of our education system depends upon transforming
children into functional being through formal means as it is systematic,
organized and deliberate. Within school, classroom and its activities play a
dominant role in shaping the behavior of the children. Hence, it is indeed
important that classroom activities should be pre-planned by teachers with
intent that whatever objectives (behavioural) set forth by teachers at
planning stage should be achieved once instructional process is completed.
This pre-determined set of instructional objectives are also called learning
outcomes. More explicitly, instructional objectives are specific behaviors or
outcomes resultant out of the interactions between teacher-learner, learner-
learner and learner-teacher. The designing of learning experiences is key and
should be matched with instructional objectives so that expected learning
outcomes are obtained. If the teacher is unable to formulate right set of
instructional objectives, it always leads to non-directed teaching i.e. aimless
teaching. In human beings three domains i.e. cognitive, affective and
psychomotor, need to be developed therefore, instructional objectives should
be formulated for each of these three domains. Dr. Bloom was the first
person to develop the taxonomy of educational objectives on cognitive
domain which is further sub-divided into several sub-levels. Later on
Krathwohl, Simpson, Dave and others gave taxonomy of other two domains.
Each sub-level attainment is measured when objective are stated using
appropriate action verbs. But, in 2001 Krathwohl and Anderson revised the
Bloom taxonomy cognitive domain as it has some inherent limitations. The
present module will deal about the new taxonomy of educational objectives
and in what way the learning experiences and evaluation are related to new
taxonomy.
6. Detecting
correspondences between
two ideas, objects, and
the like
7. Constructing a cause
and effect model of a
system
Level 3 Apply Applying a procedure to Illustrate, Students will
a familiar task demonstrate, able to
1. Applying a procedure dramatize, illustrate the
to a familiar task employ, perform, phenomenon of
2. Applying a procedure interpret, etc evaporation
to an unfamiliar task and
condensation in
making of tea
Level-4 Analyze Break material into its Compare Students will be
constituent parts and contrast, able to find out
determine how the parts criticize, debate, the different
relate to one another and argue, appraise, physical
to an overall structure or calculate, etc. phenomenon
purpose present in the
1. Distinguishing relevant water cycle
from irrelevant parts or
important from
unimportant parts of
presented material
2. Determining how
elements fit or function
within a structure
3. Determine a point of
view, bias, values, or
intent underlying
presented material
Level-5 Evaluate Make judgments based Judge, review, Students will
on criteria and standards evaluate, assess, able to assess
1. Detecting monitor, justify, the relevance of
inconsistencies or etc. water cycle in
fallacies within a process drought areas.
or product; determining
whether a process or
product has internal
consistency; detecting the
effectiveness of a
procedure as it is being
implemented
2. Detecting
inconsistencies between a
product and external
criteria; determining
whether a product has
external consistency;
detecting the
appropriateness of a
procedure for a given
problem
Level-6 Create Put elements together categorizes, Students will be
to form a coherent or combines, able to find out
functional whole; compiles, the water
reorganize elements composes, conservation
into a new pattern or creates, solutions for the
structure: devises, drought affected
1. Coming up with designs, areas.
alternative hypotheses explains,
based on criteria generates,
2. Devising a procedure modifies,
for accomplishing some organizes,
task plans,
3. Inventing a product rearranges,
reconstructs,
relates,
reorganizes,
revises,
rewrites,
summarizes,
Source: Revised Blooms Taxonomy
https://tlc.iitm.ac.in/PDF/Blooms%20Tax.pdf(Source (Cited from
Anderson, Lorin W. & Krathwohl, David R. (2001). A Taxonomy for Learning,
Teaching and Assessing: a Revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy. New York.
Longman Publishing.)
Source: Figure 3: Depicting the Revised cognitive domain
Source: McNulty, Niall.(27 November, 2017). Blooms’ Digital Taxonomy
Retrieved from https://www.niallmcnulty.com/2017/11/blooms-digital-
taxonomy/
Source: Adopted from Clark, D.(12th January, 2015). A Big Dog, Little Dog and Knowledge
Jump (Blog) http://www.nwlink.com /~donclark/hrd/ Bloom/ affective_domain.html
The detail about the categories of affective domain along with descriptors
and action verbs associated with each category is presented in the
following figure.
Figure 4: Bloom and Krathwohl (1964) Categorization of Revised
Affective domain
Psychomotor Domain: We have often listened to old proverb “All work and
no play make the jack a dull boy” or “Healthy mind resides in healthy body”.
This is truly true. Psychomotor domain looks into physical movement,
coordination and use of motor skills of an individual. Development of these
skills requires intense practice and is measured through speed, precision,
accuracy, time, distance, procedures, or techniques in execution. Right from
the infancy to the adulthood all that it is processed in the mental cognition of
human being would transform into an articulated physical activity. It started
from the dexterity of the fingers to the coordination of hand and to the entire
mechanical system, all rests on the physical development of organs involved
in it. In school or any educational institutions emphasis is given to games
and sports so that child keeps himself/herself healthy. Several subjects like
science and maths have experiments or practical work which need well
developed motor skills to perform the practical activities. Thus, the essence
of keeping co-curricular activities and practical’s is not only for recreational
purpose, but also through these activities, school/institution wants to
develop child motor skills, coordination among different physical organs and
ultimately develop the child into a healthy human being. Simpson (1966) was
the first to provide various categories of psychomotor domains. Later on
Harrow (1972) and Dave (1975) separately gave the different categories of
psychomotor domain. Here we will discuss the only the R H Dave taxonomies
only.
Activity No.1: Select any topic from your teaching subject and write instructional objectives on
each sub-level of cognitive domain.
Activity No. 2: Suppose you are going to teach a lesson on Democracy. List the instructional
objectives for each sub-level of affective domains?
4.0 Summary
One of the main purposes of education was to bring change in the behavior
of human beings. To bring desired change in behavior of individuals Blooms
and his co-worker thought that since thinking is an active process and if
any manner this thinking process is translated into actionable behavior
then behaviour would be measured. That’s why Bloom develops taxonomy of
educational objectives in the year 1956 like taxonomy of plant or animal
kingdom. He was of the view that human actions can be categorized into
three domains called cognitive, affective and psychomotor domain. Each of
the domains can be further categorize into different sub-levels into
hierarchical form. But later on Anderson and Krathwohl(2001) revisited
Bloom taxonomy and made subtle changes in the cognitive domain of Bloom
taxonomy. In the revised version, in place of knowledge word “remember” is
used evaluating and creating are higher order of thinking process than what
earlier it had. Another aspect, since thinking is an active process; therefore,
every level of cognitive domain would be represented by verb rather than
noun. Since objectives are always highly specific, measurable and always
pre-determined therefore, learning experiences which are provided to the
students must aligned with it otherwise, expected learning outcome which
would reflect the change in behaviour of the students. As education is a tri-
polar process among educational objectives, learning experiences and
evaluation therefore they must be interlinked so that expected change in the
behavior of the learner could be yielded otherwise all our energy, efforts and
time will be wasted in this direction.
Quadrant-III - (Learn More / Web Resources / Supplementary
Materials):
Learn More:
Ahmad, J.(2009). Teaching of biological sciences. New Delhi: Prentice Hall
of India
Mohan, R.(2007). Innovative science teaching (3rd Ed.). New Delhi: Prentice
Hall of India
Linn, R.E. & Gronlund, N.E. (1999). Measurement and assessment in
teaching (8th Ed.) UK : Prentice Hall International
Gronlund, N.E.(1970). Stating behavioral objectives in classroom. New York
: Macmillan Company,
Gronlund, N.E.(2004). Writing instructional objectives for teaching and
assessment (7th Ed.). UK : Prentice Hall International
Srivastava, H.S.(2018). Foundation and application of educational
evaluation (Vol. I & II) Hyderabad : Neelkamal Publication
Websites Resources
Ascendia. (2016). Bloom-Anderson taxonomy action verbs retrieved from
https://www.dacobots.com/Community/educational-objectives-for-
elearning-bloom-anderson-taxonomy/
Bloom, B.S.; Engelheart, M.D; Furst, E.J; Walker, H.H. & Krathwohl,
D.R.(1956). Taxonomy of educational objectives: The classification of
educational goals retrieved from https://www.uky.edu
/~rsand1/china2018/texts/Bloom%20et%20al%20-
Taxonomy%20of%20Educational%20Objectives.pdf
Quadrant-IV
Q1. In the revised taxonomy of educational objective, the highest level of hierarchical thinking is:
(a) Evaluate
(b) Critical
(c) Create
(d) Divergent
Q2. The basic difference between the earlier and the revised taxonomy is:
(a) Thinking process is an Active process
(b) Creative thinking is superior than the evaluative thinking
(c) Nomenclature of different levels should be expressed in verb form.
(d) All of the above
Q3. Education is a tri-polar process and the three elements of it are:
(a) Learning objectives, learning experiences & evaluation
(b) Learner, teacher, and evaluation
(c) Objectives, curriculum and evaluation
(d) Learner, teacher and curriculum
Q4. If in a classroom, teacher is emphasizing on assimilation of information and then weighing the
information and finally takes a decision to implement. For which level of cognitive domain teacher is
providing training in the classroom?
(a) Analyze
(b) Create
(c) Understanding
(d) Evaluate
Q5. In the morning assembly, school children are instructed to do yoga and meditation under the
guidance of instructor. The school is addressing to………….. of Simpson psychomotor domain.
(a) Guided response
(b) Complex overt response
(c) Perception
(d) Set
Q6. While doing a collaborative work in a group, the emphasis on development of
……………domain
(a) Cognitive and Psychomotor
(b) Psychomotor and Affective
(c) Affective and Cognitive
(d) Cognitive, Affective and Psychomotor
Q7. Many of us are not good at fine arts but always appreciate the people and their work in this area.
Which domain of human personality do we possess?
(a) Affective
(b) Cognitive
(c) Psychomotor
(d) All of the above
Q8.It is often said that “values are not taught but actually caught”. At primary stage, which level of
affective domain we are addressing in this statement?
(a) Organization
(b) Valuing
(c) Responding
(d) Receiving
Q9. While conducting experiments in the laboratory, if teacher emphasizes on proper handling of
apparatus and equipments. Which domain of educational objective we are developing?
(a) Cognitive
(b) Affective
(c) Psychomotor
(d) All three of them
Q10. Learning experiences provided to the students will be based on the ……..
(a) Content
(b) Method
(c) Evaluation strategies
(d) Objectives
Q11. The most important role of evaluation in teaching-learning process is to:
(a) Provide feedback to students
(b) Address the issues related to teaching-learning process
(c) Devise strategies for the improvement of educational outcomes
(d) Mould the objectives and learning experiences in consonance with each other
Q12. Identify the odd one from the following:
(a) Ralph Tyler
(b) R H Dave
(c) Simpson
(d) Krathwohl
Q13. Which one of them is not an example of learning experience?
(a) Visiting to nearby museum
(b) Showing the historical monuments
(c) Teaching content from a book
(d) Preparing a model of volcano
Q14. Developing a new hypothesis based on the experiences or researches is
(a) Highest level of cognitive domain
(b) Highest level of affective domain
(c) Highest level of Psychomotor domain
(d) None of the above
Q15. Framing of educational objectives in behavioral form is utmost necessary because:
(a) It is easily measurable
(b) It is easily observable
(c) It is easily actionable
(d) Both (a) & (b)
Answer Key
Q1. c
Q2. d
Q3. a
Q4. d
Q5. a
Q6. c
Q7. a
Q8. d
Q9. c
Q10. a
Q11. d
Q12. a
Q13. c
Q14. a
Q15. d