Originally devised in the 1950s, and revised in 2001, Bloom’s Taxonomy is used to classify course or unit objectives, activities, and assessments (Krathwohl, 218). The Revised Taxonomy distinguishes two broad categories: Cognitive Process and Knowledge dimensions, included in the Revised Taxonomy Chart.
THE COGNITIVE PROCESS DIMENSION
The Cognitive Process dimension consists of the following subcategories:
- REMEMBER (recalling information)
- UNDERSTAND (decoding the meaning)
- APPLY (use knowledge in new situations)
- ANALYZE (break down concepts into their components to establish the relationships between them)
- EVALUATE (express judgment)
- CREATE(devise original work and propose unique solutions to problems).
Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching
Usually represented as a triangle, this dimension classifies mental processes from simple to more complex. The further you move up from the Remember category, the more complex and cognitively-demanding knowledge and skills become.
Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching
View the Corresponding Assessment Types
THE KNOWLEDGE DIMENSION
The Knowledge dimension in the Revised Taxonomy is divided into the following categories.
- FACTUAL Knowledge
- CONCEPTUAL Knowledge
- PROCEDURAL Knowledge
- METACOGNITIVE Knowledge
Download the Revised Taxonomy chart and follow the steps below. The chart is meant to be used as a course planning tool to help faculty articulate and categorize the course, unit, activity, or assessment objectives.
Step 1
Select an appropriate action verb from the Cognitive Process category to articulate the objective you are creating. Select the corresponding assessment type if needed.
- ACTION VERBS: define, arrange, list, memorize, repeat, state
- CORRESPONDING TYPES OF ASSESSMENT: Quizzes (multiple choices, fill-in-the-blank, diagram recognition)
- ACTION VERBS: classify, describe, discuss, explain, identify, locate, recognize, report, select, translate
- CORRESPONDING TYPES OF ASSESSMENT: Papers, discussions, concept maps, that prompt students to summarize, paraphrase, compare, identity examples…
- ACTION VERBS: execute, implement, solve, use, demonstrate, interpret, operate, sketch, apply, illustrate, break down
- CORRESPONDING TYPES OF ASSESSMENTS: Problem sets, performances, labs, prototyping, simulations…
- ACTION VERBS: differentiate, organize, relate, compare, contrast, distinguish, examine, experiment, question, test
- CORRESPONDING TYPES OF ASSESSMENTS: Critiques, problem sets, papers, debates that prompt students to distinguish relevant from irrelevant information, determine bias, values, authors’ intent, or explain how parts of a whole work together.
- ACTION VERBS: appraise, argue, defend, judge, select, value, critique, weight, justify, choose, assess
- CORRESPONDING TYPES OF ASSESSMENTS: Journals, diaries, critiques, problem sets, product reviews, case studies that prompt students to compare and evaluate against a set of established criteria.
- ACTION VERBS: design, assemble, construct, develop, formulate, investigate, create
- CORRESPONDING TYPES OF ASSESSMENTS: Research projects, musical compositions, performances, essays, portfolios, business plans, website designs, prototyping, and set designs.
Step 2
Match the Cognitive Process category you selected in the previous step with the category in the Revised Taxonomy’s Knowledge row.
-
- FACTUAL Knowledge
- CONCEPTUAL Knowledge
- PROCEDURAL Knowledge
- METACOGNITIVE Knowledge
Step 3
Write down the learning outcome starting with the phrase “Students will be able to.” Use the action verb you’ve identified in step 1 to create the objective. Select the corresponding assignment type and decide
Assign the appropriate grade value based on the categories from the Revised Chart you selected. High-stakes assignments (graded more in the final grade breakdown) should correspond to the APPLY, ANALYZE, EVALUATE, and CREATE categories. Low-stakes assignments (graded less in the final grade breakdown) should correspond to the REMEMBER and UNDERSTAND categories.
Students will be able to:
identify art historical terminology and methodologyA corresponding assessment may be a quiz with matching or multiple-choice questions (5% of the final grade).
Figure 1. Revised Taxonomy Table.
One-dimensional
The original taxonomy organized cognitive processes for acquiring knowledge in a hierarchical order; its categories included Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, and Evaluation.
Knowledge
- Knowledge of specifics
- Knowledge of terminology
- Knowledge of specific facts
- Knowledge of ways and means of dealing with specifics
- Knowledge of conventions
- Knowledge of trends and sequences
- Knowledge of classifications and categories
- Knowledge of criteria
- Knowledge of methodology
- Knowledge of universals and abstractions in a field
- Knowledge of principles and generalizations
- Knowledge of theories and structures
Comprehension
- Translation
- Interpretation
- Extrapolation
Application
Analysis
- Analysis of elements
- Analysis of relationships
- Analysis of organizational principles
Synthesis
- Production of a unique communication
- Production of a plan, or proposed set of operations
- Derivation of a set of abstract relations
Evaluation
- Evaluation in terms of internal evidence
- Judgments in terms of external criteria
Krathwohl, David R.” A Revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy: An Overview.” Theory Into Practice, Autumn, 2002, Vol. 41, No. 4, Revising Bloom’s Taxonomy (Autumn, 2002), 212-218.https://www.jstor.org/stable/1477405
Two-dimensional
In the early 2000s, Anderson, Krathwohl, et all. published a Revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives where they recognized and addressed the original taxonomy’s anomaly about the Knowledge category. Typically used to phrase learning objectives in curriculum development, the original Knowledge category implied and fused both a noun and a verb part of the objective phrase (e.g., the students will be able to recognize basic terminology used in political science). to address this issue, Anderson, Krathwohl, et all. proposed restructuring the taxonomy into two dimensions – 1. Knowledge Dimension (and its subcategories) and 2. Cognitive Processes Dimension (and its categories).
Furthermore, the revised taxonomy incorporated active verbs and gerunds to denote mental processes involved in problem-solving endeavors. The main categories of Cognitive Processes Dimension are, thus, renamed into Remember, Understand, Apply, Analyze, Evaluate, and Create.
The result was the Taxonomy Table (figure 1) that represents each objective in two dimensions where the Knowledge Dimension and its subcategories represent a vertical axis and the Cognitive Processes and its subcategories occupy the horizontal axes. The intersections of Knowledge and Cognitive Processes form the cells, where the objectives can be placed.
Even though the original taxonomy emphasized the hierarchical relationship between the categories, the revised taxonomy drifted away from such a strict hierarchy. Krathwohl points out, ” because the revision gives much greater weight to teacher usage, the requirement of a strict hierarchy has been relaxed to allow the categories to overlap one another” (Krathwohl, 2016).
Factual Knowledge
The basic elements that students must know to be acquainted with a discipline or solve problems
- Knowledge of terminology
- Knowledge of specific details and elements
Conceptual Knowledge
The interrelationships among the basic elements within a larger structure enable them to function together.
- Knowledge of classifications and categories
- Knowledge of principles and generalizations
- Knowledge of theories, models, and structures
Procedural Knowledge
How to do something; methods of inquiry, and criteria for using skills, algorithms, techniques, and methods.
- Knowledge of subject-specific skills and algorithms
- Knowledge of subject-specific techniques and
methods - Knowledge of criteria for determining when to use appropriate procedures
Metacognitive Knowledge
Knowledge of cognition in general as well as awareness and knowledge of one’s own cognition.
- Strategic knowledge
- Knowledge about cognitive tasks, including appropriate contextual and conditional knowledge
- Self-knowledge
Krathwohl, David R.” A Revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy: An Overview.” Theory Into Practice, Autumn, 2002, Vol. 41, No. 4, Revising Bloom’s Taxonomy (Autumn, 2002), 212-218.https://www.jstor.org/stable/1477405
Remember
Retrieving relevant knowledge from long-term memory.
- Recognizing
- Recalling
Understand
Determining the meaning of instructional messages, including oral, written, and graphic communication.
- Interpreting
- Exemplifying
- Classifying
- Summarizing
- Inferring
- Comparing
- Explaining
Apply
Carrying out or using a procedure in a given situation.
- Executing
- Implementing
Analyze
Breaking material into its constituent parts and detecting how the parts relate to one another and to an overall structure or purpose.
- Differentiating
- Organizing
- Attributing
Evaluate
Making judgments based on criteria and standards.
- Checking
- Critiquing
Create
Putting elements together to form a novel, coherent whole or make an original product.
- Generating
- Planning
- Producing
Krathwohl, David R.” A Revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy: An Overview.” Theory Into Practice, Autumn, 2002, Vol. 41, No. 4, Revising Bloom’s Taxonomy (Autumn, 2002), 212-218.https://www.jstor.org/stable/1477405
