Bloom’s Taxonomy is a classification system used to

define and distinguish different levels of human cognition

i.e.thinking, learning, and understanding.

Educators have typically used Bloom’s taxonomy to inform or guide

the development of assessments (tests and other evaluations of
student learning), curriculum (units, lessons, projects, and other
learning activities), and instructional methods such as questioning
strategies. (Bloom’s Taxonomy, 2014)

Biography

Benjamin Samuel Bloom, one of the greatest minds to influence the

field of education, was born on February 21, 1913 in Lansford,
Pennsylvania. As a young man, he was already an avid reader and
curious researcher. Bloom received both a bachelor’s and master’s
degree from Pennsylvania State University in 1935. He went on to
earn a doctorate’s degree from the University of Chicago in 1942,
where he acted as first a staff member of the Board of Examinations
(1940-43), then a University Examiner (1943-59), as well as an
instructor in the Department of Education, beginning in 1944. In
1970, Bloom was honored with becoming a Charles H. Swift
Distinguished Professor at the University of Chicago.

Bloom’s most recognized and highly regarded initial work spawned

from his collaboration with his mentor and fellow examiner Ralph
W. Tyler and came to be known as Bloom’s Taxonomy. These ideas
are highlighted in his third publication, Taxonomy of Educational
Objectives: Handbook I, The Cognitive Domain. He later wrote a
second handbook for the taxonomy in 1964, which focuses on the
affective domain. Bloom’s research in early childhood education,
published in his 1964 Stability and Change in Human
Characteristics sparked widespread interest in children and
learning and eventually and directly led to the formation of the
Head Start program in America. In all, Bloom wrote or collaborated
on eighteen publications from 1948-1993.

Aside from his scholarly contributions to the field of education,

Benjamin Bloom was an international activist and educational
consultant. In 1957, he traveled to India to conduct workshops on
evaluation, which led to great changes in the Indian educational
system. He helped create the International Association for the
Evaluation of Educational Achievement, the IEA, and organized the
International Seminar for Advanced Training in Curriculum
Development. He developed the Measurement, Evaluation, and
Statistical Analysis (MESA) program at eh University of Chicago. He
was chairman of both the research and development committees of
the College Entrance Examination Board and the president of the
American Educational Research Association.

Introduction
One of the basic questions facing educators has always been “Where
do we begin in seeking to improve human thinking?” (Houghton,
2004). Fortunately, we do not have to begin from scratch in
searching for answers to this complicated question. The
Communities Resolving Our Problems (CROP) recommends, “One
place to begin is in defining the nature of thinking.

Before we can make it better, we need to know more of what it is”

(Houghton, 2004). Benjamin S. Bloom extensively contemplated
the nature of thinking, eventually authoring or co-authoring 18
books. According to a biography of Bloom, written by former
student Elliot W Eisner, “It was clear that he was in love with the
process of finding out, and finding out is what I think he did best.
One of Bloom’s great talents was having a nose for what is
significant” (2002).

Although it received little attention when first published, Bloom’s

Taxonomy has since been translated into 22 languages and is one of
the most widely applied and most often cited references in
education. (Anderson & Sosniak, 1994, preface), (Houghton, 2004),
(Krathwohl, 2002), (oz-TeacherNet, 2001). As of this writing, three
other chapters in this e-book make reference to Bloom’s Taxonomy,
yet another testament to its relevance.

History
In 1780, Abigail Adams stated, “Learning is not attained by chance;
it must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence”
(quotationspage.com, 2005).

 Learning, teaching, identifying educational goals, and

thinking are all complicated concepts interwoven in an
intricate web.

Bloom was arduous, diligent, and patient while seeking to demystify

these concepts and untangle this web. He made “the improvement
of student learning” (Bloom 1971, Preface) the central focus of his
life’s work.
Discussions during the 1948 Convention of the American
Psychological Association led Bloom to spearhead a group of
educators who eventually undertook the ambitious task of
classifying educational goals and objectives. Their intent was to
develop a method of classification for thinking behaviors that were
believed to be important in the processes of learning. Eventually,
this framework became a taxonomy of three domains:

• The cognitive – knowledge based domain, consisting of six levels

• The affective – attitudinal based domain, consisting of five levels, and

• The psychomotor – skills based domain, consisting of six levels.

In 1956, eight years after the group first began, work on the
cognitive domain was completed and a handbook commonly
referred to as “Bloom’s Taxonomy” was published. This chapter
focuses its attention on the cognitive domain.
While Bloom pushed for the use of the term “taxonomy,” others in
the group resisted because of the unfamiliarity of the term within
educational circles.

Eventually, Bloom prevailed, forever linking his name and the term.
The small volume intended for university examiners “has been
transformed into a basic reference for all educators worldwide.
Unexpectedly, it has been used by curriculum planners,
administrators, researchers, and classroom teachers at all levels of
education” (Anderson & Sosniak, 1994, p. 1). While it should be
noted that other educational taxonomies and hierarchical systems
have been developed, it is Bloom’s Taxonomy which remains, even
after nearly fifty years, the de facto standard.

What is Bloom’s Taxonomy?

Understanding that “taxonomy” and “classification” are
synonymous helps dispel uneasiness with the term. Bloom’s
Taxonomy is a multi-tiered model of classifying thinking according
to six cognitive levels of complexity. Throughout the years, the
levels have often been depicted as a stairway, leading many teachers
to encourage their students to “climb to a higher (level of) thought”.

The lowest three levels are: knowledge, comprehension, and

application. The highest three levels are: analysis, synthesis, and
evaluation. “The taxonomy is hierarchical; [in that] each level is
subsumed by the higher levels. In other words, a student
functioning at the ‘application’ level has also mastered the material
at the ‘knowledge’ and ‘comprehension’ levels.” (UW Teaching
Academy, 2003). One can easily see how this arrangement led to
natural divisions of lower and higher level thinking.

Clearly, Bloom’s Taxonomy has stood the test of time. Due to its
long history and popularity, it has been condensed, expanded, and
reinterpreted in a variety of ways. Research findings have led to the
discovery of a veritable smörgåsbord of interpretations and
applications falling on a continuum ranging from tight overviews to
expanded explanations. Nonetheless, one recent revision (designed
by one of the co-editors of the original taxonomy along with a
former Bloom student) merits particular attention.

Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy (RBT)

During the 1990’s, a former student of Bloom’s, Lorin Anderson, led
a new assembly which met for the purpose of updating the
taxonomy, hoping to add relevance for 21st century students and
teachers. This time “representatives of three groups [were present]:
cognitive psychologists, curriculum theorists and instructional
researchers, and testing and assessment specialists” (Anderson, &
Krathwohl, 2001, p. xxviii).

Like the original group, they were also arduous and diligent in their
pursuit of learning, spending six years to finalize their work.
Published in 2001, the revision includes several seemingly minor
yet actually quite significant changes. Several excellent sources are
available which detail the revisions and reasons for the changes. A
more concise summary appears here. The changes occur in three
broad categories: terminology, structure, and emphasis.

Terminology changes
Changes in terminology between the two versions are perhaps the
most obvious differences and can also cause the most confusion.
Basically, Bloom’s six major categories were changed from noun to
verb forms. Additionally, the lowest level of the original, knowledge
was renamed and became remembering. Finally, comprehension
and synthesis were retitled to understanding and creating. In an
effort to minimize the confusion, comparison images appear below.

Exhibit 4: Terminology changes “The graphic is a representation of

the NEW verbiage 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.” (Schultz, 2005) (Evaluation moved from the top to
Evaluating in the second from the top, Synthesis moved from
second on top to the top as Creating.)

The new terms are defined as:

 Remembering: Retrieving, recognizing, and recalling

relevant knowledge from long-term memory.
 Understanding: Constructing meaning from oral, written,
and graphic messages through interpreting, exemplifying,
classifying, summarizing, inferring, comparing, and explaining.
 Applying: Carrying out or using a procedure through
executing, or implementing.
 Analyzing: Breaking material into constituent parts,
determining how the parts relate to one another and to an
 overall structure or purpose through differentiating, organizing,
and attributing.
 Evaluating: Making judgments based on criteria and
standards through checking and critiquing.
 Creating: Putting elements together to form a coherent or
functional whole; reorganizing elements into a new pattern or
structure through generating, planning, or producing.

Structural changes
Structural changes seem dramatic at first, yet are quite logical when
closely examined. Bloom’s original cognitive taxonomy was a one-
dimensional form. With the addition of products, the Revised
Bloom’s Taxonomy takes the form of a two-dimensional table.

One of the dimensions, identifies The Knowledge Dimension (or the

kind of knowledge to be learned) while the second identifies The
Cognitive Process Dimension (or the process used to learn).

Each of the four Knowledge Dimension levels is subdivided into

either three or four categories (e.g. Factual is divided into Factual,
Knowledge of Terminology, and Knowledge of Specific Details and
Elements). The Cognitive Process Dimension levels are also
subdivided with the number of sectors in each level ranging from a
low of three to a high of eight categories. For example, Remember is
subdivided into the three categories of Remember, Recognizing, and
Recalling while the Understanding level is divided into eight
separate categories.

The resulting grid, containing 19 subcategories is most helpful to

teachers in both writing objectives and aligning standards with
curricular. The “Why” and “How” sections of this chapter further
discuss use of the Taxonomy Table as well as provide specific
examples of applications.
 Changes in emphasis
Emphasis is the third and final category of changes. As
noted earlier, Bloom himself recognized that the
taxonomy was being “unexpectedly” used by countless
groups never considered an audience for the original
publication. The revised version of the taxonomy is
intended for a much broader audience. Emphasis is
placed upon its use as a “more authentic tool for
curriculum planning, instructional delivery and
assessment” (oz-TeacherNet, 2001).

Why use Bloom’s Taxonomy?

As history has shown, this well known, widely applied scheme filled
a void and provided educators with one of the first systematic
classifications of the processes of thinking and learning. The
cumulative hierarchical framework consisting of six categories, each
requiring achievement of the prior skill or ability before the next,
more complex, one, remains easy to understand. Out of necessity,
teachers must measure their students’ ability. Accurately doing so
requires a classification of levels of intellectual behavior important
in learning. Bloom’s Taxonomy provided the measurement tool for
thinking.

With the dramatic changes in society over the last five decades, the
Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy provides an even more powerful tool to
fit today’s teachers’ needs. The structure of the Revised Taxonomy
Table matrix “provides a clear, concise visual representation”
(Krathwohl, 2002) of the alignment between standards and
educational goals, objectives, products, and activities.

 Today’s teachers must make tough decisions about how to

spend their classroom time. Clear alignment of educational
objectives with local, state, and national standards is a necessity.

Like pieces of a huge puzzle, everything must fit properly. The

Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy Table clarifies the fit of each lesson
plan’s purpose, “essential question,” goal or objective. The twenty-
four-cell grid from Oregon State University that is shown above
along with the printable taxonomy table examples can easily be
used in conjunction with a chart. When used in this manner the
“Essential Question” or the lesson objective becomes clearly
defined.

How can Bloom’s Taxonomy be used?

A search of the World Wide Web will yield clear evidence that
Bloom’s Taxonomy has been applied to a variety of situations.
Current results include a broad spectrum of applications
represented by articles and websites describing everything from
corrosion training to medical preparation. In almost all
circumstances when an instructor desires to move a group of
students through a learning process utilizing an organized
framework, Bloom’s Taxonomy can prove helpful. Yet the
educational setting (K-graduate) remains the most often used
application. A brief explanation of one example is described below.

The educational journal Theory into Practice published an entire

issue on the Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy.
Included is an article entitled, “Using the Revised Taxonomy to Plan
and Deliver Team-Taught, Integrated, Thematic Units” (Ferguson,
2002).

The writer describes the use of the revised Bloom’s Taxonomy to

plan and deliver an integrated English and history course entitled
“Western Culture.” The taxonomy provided the team-teachers with
a common language with which to translate and discuss state
standards from two different subject areas. Moreover, it helped
them to understand how their subjects overlapped and how they
could develop conceptual and procedural knowledge concurrently.
Furthermore, the taxonomy table in the revised taxonomy provided
the history and English teachers with a new outlook on assessment
and enabled them to create assignments and projects that required
students to operate at more complex levels of thinking (Abstract,
Ferguson, 2002).

Bloom’s group initially met hoping to reduce the duplication of

effort by faculty at various universities. In the beginning, the scope
of their purpose was limited to facilitating the exchange of test
items measuring the same educational objectives. Intending the
Taxonomy “as a method of classifying educational objectives,
educational experiences, learning processes, and evaluation
questions and problems” (Paul, 1985 p. 39), numerous examples of
test items (mostly multiple choice) were included. This led to a
natural linkage of specific verbs and products with each level of the
taxonomy. Thus, when designing effective lesson plans, teachers
often look to Bloom’s Taxonomy for guidance.

Likewise the Revised Taxonomy includes specific verb and product

linkage with each of the levels of the Cognitive Process Dimension.
However, due to its 19 subcategories and two-dimensional
organization, there is more clarity and less confusion about the fit of
a specific verb or product to a given level. Thus the Revised
Taxonomy offers teachers an even more powerful tool to help design
their lesson plans.
As touched upon earlier, through the years, Bloom’s Taxonomy has
given rise to educational concepts, including terms such as high and
low level thinking. It has also been closely linked with multiple
intelligences (Noble, 2004) problem solving skills, creative and
critical thinking, and more recently, technology integration.

Using the Revised Taxonomy in an adaptation from the Omaha

Public Schools Teacher’s Corner, a lesson objective based upon the
story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears is presented for each of the
six levels of the Cognitive Process as shown on the Revised
Taxonomy Table.

 Remember: Describe where Goldilocks lived.

 Understand: Summarize what the Goldilocks story was
about.
 Apply: Construct a theory as to why Goldilocks went into the
house.
 Analyze: Differentiate between how Goldilocks reacted and
how you would react in each story event.
 Evaluate: Assess whether or not you think this really
happened to Goldilocks.
 Create: Compose a song, skit, poem, or rap to convey the
Goldilocks story in a new form.
Although this is a very simple example of the application of
Bloom’s taxonomy the author is hopeful that it will demonstrate
both the ease and the usefulness of the Revised Taxonomy
Table.
 Conclusion
Countless people know, love and are comfortable with the
original Bloom’s Taxonomy and are understandably
hesitant to change. After all, change is difficult for most
people. The original Bloom’s Taxonomy was and is a
superb tool for educators. Yet, even “the original group
always considered the [Taxonomy] framework a work in
progress, neither finished nor final” (Anderson &
Krathwohl 2001 p. xxvii). The new century has brought us
the Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy which really is new and
improved.