Bloom’s taxonomy: categories and application examples

In 1956, the American psychologist and educator Benjamin Bloom (1913-1999) developed his taxonomy of educational objectives, which we know today as Bloom’s taxonomy.

It is a teaching methodology specially designed to establish objectives and evaluate the knowledge acquired. To do this, it describes different categories, through which the student progressively incorporates knowledge.

Bloom’s taxonomy divides learning objectives into three large groups, which imply the integral development of a person:

• Affective or attitudinal: includes emotional and evaluative attitudes.
• Piscomotor or procedural: they are motor skills.
• Cognitive or intellectual: are knowledge and intellectual skills.

Taking each of these categories into account, it is possible to set objectives and focus teaching based on them. Subsequently, each stage can be evaluated, followed up, and progress in each area or level can be quantified.

Features of Bloom’s Taxonomy

Bloom’s 1956 taxonomy has the following characteristics:

• Phases: includes six phases or stages.
• Names: Each of the phases has a distinctive name, which is a noun.
• Hierarchy: each level has a hierarchy and that is why they are usually represented in the form of a pyramid, at the base of which is the lower level and at the top, the upper level. You cannot reach a higher level if you have not yet reached the previous level.

What is Bloom’s taxonomy for?

Bloom’s Taxonomy was created to help educators achieve better learning outcomes for their students and develop their full potential.

This taxonomy is used to formulate learning objectives. It not only facilitates the writing of objectives when teaching but also the effectiveness of teaching and its subsequent evaluation.

This Bloom classification allows the contents to be developed from the introduction of the concepts to their application, going through each of the levels until reaching the objectives that were previously established.

Bloom’s taxonomy is a practical resource for teachers, especially when planning activities. It enables students to first acquire theoretical knowledge and then apply it in concrete situations.

Likewise, this methodology is useful for evaluating the degree of cognitive, affective and psychomotor development of a student according to the level at which they are.

Bloom’s taxonomy levels

affective domain

The affective domain of Bloom’s taxonomy focuses on the role of emotions during the learning process. In this area, students’ attitudes are analyzed according to emotional and affective aspects. For example, your behavior, values, biases, interests, and emotions.

The levels in this section are:

• Reception: This is the lower level, in which the student pays attention while maintaining a passive attitude.
• Response: here the student has an active attitude, reacts to the stimuli of the learning process and generates a response.
• Assessment: the student gives a certain value to the information, objects, etc.
• Organization: in this stage the student classifies the values ​​and ideas that he has accumulated, making comparisons and relating what he has learned.
• Characterization: the student incorporates those values ​​or ideas. This influences her behavior and becomes her own characteristic.

Psychomotor domain

The psychomotor domain analyzes the physical and motor aspects of a student in the learning process. This includes skills such as muscle coordination, neural function, and motor skills.

Bloom’s taxonomy levels for the psychomotor domain are:

• Perception: in this phase the student recognizes his environment through the senses. He imitates gestures and sounds, repeats movements and copies strokes.
• Willingness: at this stage the student demonstrates that they have the physical ability to begin to manipulate objects with more precision, move parts of the body, use instruments, write, draw, etc.
• Guided response: with help, the student can carry out movements with great precision and synchronization.
• Mechanical response: at this stage the student can have a mechanical response after the guided responses. This translates into greater coordination and the ability to perform more complex physical activities.
• Evident complete answer: in this phase the student can act autonomously, without help. It is natural and easy to move, sing, dance, read aloud, etc.

cognitive domain

Bloom’s taxonomy regarding the cognitive domain, that is, intellectual abilities and the way in which information is processed, is divided into six levels:

• Knowledge: this level is related to the memorization of concepts.
• Comprehension: in this stage the acquired knowledge is interpreted and expressed in their own words.
• Application: here the new knowledge is applied in different situations.
• Analysis: at this level you can separate the different parts of knowledge and observe their differences.
• Synthesis: at this stage it is possible to summarize what has been learned.
• Evaluation: upon reaching this level, value judgments can be made based on all the concepts and information acquired.

Examples of verbs to apply Bloom’s taxonomy

Each of the previous levels are associated with different verbs that allow them to be applied and recognized. Some of them are:

Bloom’s Taxonomy Revisions

Since its creation, there have been several revisions to Bloom’s taxonomy. In fact, the one currently used, especially in the cognitive domain, is a revision of the original classification formulated in the year 2000 by David Krathwohl and Lorin Anderson.

David Krathwohl (1921-2016) was an American psychologist who studied with Benjamin Bloom and who was also the co-author of Bloom’s initial taxonomy. Lorin W. Anderson is also an American psychologist and educator who was a student of Bloom’s.

Between 2000 and 2001, Krathwohl and Anderson reorganized Bloom’s taxonomy and made some changes to it:

• Nouns were replaced by verbs in the infinitive.
• The last two levels have changed their order and name, as can be seen in the image below.

Both researchers emphasized the importance and difficulty of creating as the highest point in the learning process. Therefore, they considered that this was the upper level, instead of evaluating, which is currently considered the level to be created.

Levels of Bloom’s taxonomy revised by Krathwohl and Anderson

Based on Krathwohl and Anderson’s review, Bloom’s taxonomy levels for the cognitive domain are:

• Remember: retrieve the knowledge that was memorized.
• Understand: express in own words the meanings of the concepts learned.
• Apply: put into practice the knowledge acquired in different procedures or situations.
• Analyze: being able to distinguish the different components of what has been learned in order to fully understand it.
• Evaluate: make value judgments according to certain criteria and standards.
• Create: build something new from the information learned.

Examples of verbs to apply Bloom’s current taxonomy

It should be noted that some of the verbs are repeated at different levels of the taxonomy, which has to do with the same process, since each stage is related to the next. That said, according to Krawthwohl and Anderson, the verbs related to each of the levels of Bloom’s new taxonomy are:

Bibliography

• Carbonell Sebarroja, J. Pedagogies of the 21st century: Alternatives for educational innovation . (2015). Spain. Octahedron.
• Guerrero Hernández, JA (2019, October 27). What is Bloom’s Taxonomy and what is it for? Docentesaldia.com. Available at https://docentesaldia.com/2019/10/27/que-es-la-taxonomia-de-bloom-y-para-que-sirve/