Bloom’s Taxonomy
Bloom’s Taxonomy of the cognitive domain, or thinking skills, can be helpful in constructing course learning objectives and exam questions. Bloom and colleagues found that over 95% of exam questions required students to activate low-level thinking skills such as recall (1956). In addition, research has shown that students remember more content when they have learned a topic through higher thinking skills such as application or evaluation.
Therefore, using Bloom’s Taxonomy as a guide, you can create learning objectives and exam questions that activate and assess different, as well as higher, levels of student thinking.
Bloom’s Taxonomy is a hierarchy of six cognitive skills arranged from less to more complex.
Knowledge: Recognizes students’ ability to use rote memorization and recall certain facts.
- Action verbs to help write objectives or exam questions for this domain:
- Cite, define, identify, label, list, match, name, recognize, reproduce, select, state
- Example of a learning objective :
- “The students will recall the four major food groups without error.”
- Example of an exam question:
- “Name the four major food groups.”
Comprehension: Involves students’ ability to read course content, understand and interpret important information and put other’s ideas into their own words.
- Action verbs to help write objectives or exam questions for this domain:
- Classify, convert, describe, distinguish between, explain, extend, give examples, illustrate, interpret, paraphrase, summarize, translate
- Example of a learning objective :
- “The students will summarize the main events of a story in grammatically correct English”
- Example of an exam question:
- “Using grammatically correct English, please explain the main events that lead to the creation of the four major food groups?”
Application: Students take new concepts and apply them to another situation.
- Action verbs to help write objectives or exam questions for this domain:
- Apply, arrange, compute, construct, demonstrate, discover, modify, operate, predict, prepare, produce, relate, show, solve, use
- Example of a learning objective:
- “The students will multiply fractions in class with 90 percent accuracy.”
- Example of an exam question:
- “Solve for the ten following fraction multiplication problems. Please make sure to show all your work.”
Analysis – Students have the ability to take new information and break it down into parts to differentiate between them.
- Action verbs to help write objectives or exam questions for this domain:
- Analyze, associate, determine, diagram, differentiate, discriminate, distinguish, estimate, infer, order, outline, point out, separate, subdivide
- Example of a learning objective:
- “The students will read a presidential debate and point out the passages that attack a political opponent personally rather than the opponent’s political programs.”
- Example of an exam question:
- “From the short presidential debate transcribed below: Differentiate the passages that attacked a political opponent personally, and those that attacked an opponent’s political programs.”
Synthesis – Students are able to take various pieces of information and form a whole creating a pattern where one did not previously exist.
- Action verbs to help write objectives or exam questions for this domain:
- Combine, compile, compose, construct, create, design, develop, devise, formulate, integrate, modify, organize, plan, propose, rearrange, reorganize, revise, rewrite, tell, write
- Example of a learning objective:
- “The students will write a different but plausible ending to a short story.”
- Example of an exam question:
- “Develop one plausible ending for all three short stories below.”
Evaluation – Involves students’ ability to look at someone else’s ideas or principles and see the worth of the work and the value of the conclusions.
- Action verbs to help write objectives or exam questions for this domain:
- Appraise, assess, compare, conclude, contrast, criticize, discriminate, evaluate, judge, justify, support, weigh
- Example of a learning objective:
- “The students will use the principles of socialism to evaluate the US economic system.”
- Example of an exam question:
- “Using the basic principles of socialism discussed in this course, evaluate the US economic system by providing key arguments to support your judgment.”
Activities - Test your “knowledge” of Bloom’s Taxonomy and course objectives:
Activity: Match objectives with exam questions
Activity: Categorize exam questions using Bloom's Taxonomy
Additional information
Anderson, L. W. (Ed.), Krathwohl, D. R. (Ed.), Airasian, P. W., Cruikshank, K. A., Mayer, R. R., Pintrich, P. R., Raths, J., & Wittrock, M. C. (2001). A taxonomy for learning, teaching and assessing: A revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives (Complete edition). New York: Longman.
Bloom, Engelhart, Furst, Hill, & Krathwhol. (1956). Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, Handbook I: Cognitive Domain.
Gronlund, N. E. (1998). Assessment of student achievement. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
Hellyer, S. (n.d.). A teaching handbook for university faculty. Chapter 1: Course objectives. Retrieved October 1, 1998 from Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis Web site: http://www.iupui.edu/~profdev/handbook/chap1.html
Krathwohl, D.R. (2002). A revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy: An overview. Theory into Practice, 41(4), 212-218.
Kubiszyn, K., & Borich, G. (1984). Educational testing and measurement: Classroom application and practice. Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman, pp. 53-55.
