◆Bloom's Taxonomy◆

 In 1948, the American Psychological Association (APA) gathered researchers who were making examinations in colleges, and, with the aim of facilitating smooth communication between them, started a project to categorize examination questions. Once-a-year meetings were held for eight years, which resulted in Bloom's Taxonomy of Learning Objectives. They proposed that learning domains should be divided into three domains of the brain, heart and body, and each domain be subdivided into several levels shown below. These three are the cognitive domain, the affective domain and the psychomotor domain, known as KSA (Knowledge, Skill and Attitude). The researchers gathered examination questions, categorized them one by one and broke them up into several levels inductively through a bottom-up approach. Volume I (the cognitive domain) was published in 1956 (Bloom, et al, 1956), and, eight years later, Volume II (the affective domain) was published in 1964 (Krathwohl, Bloom & Masia, 1964). However, Volume III (the psychomotor domain) was not prepared by the researchers of this group mainly because they failed to collect examination questions. Although several researchers made suggestions about this domain in the 1970s, each of them failed to become an established theory.

 A project first aimed at facilitating smooth communication between researchers through categorizing examination questions, which resulted in Bloom's Taxonomy. In addition, the categorization was also helpful as an attempt for teachers to help learning activities by investigating what and to what extent each learner achieved through the systematization of the learning content. In other words, teachers attempted to create a Formative Test under Mastery Learning. Bloom's taxonomy attracted interest not only the United States but all over the world by being translated into many languages. It became a de facto standard. Also in Japan, two translations were published, which showed Bloom's taxonomy. Chapter 14 of Educational Assessment Method Handbook includes a translation of taxonomy (abridged edition). For these reasons, the taxonomy is an appropriate subject to be discussed in Pedagogical Fundamentals. Of course, you may have heard the term, taxonomy, somewhere before.

 Behind the attempt, there was a criticism of "language-oriented education based on rote learning" in around 1948. At the Knowledge level, students only repeat what they learn (so called rote learning). But, at the Comprehension level, students are required to think for themselves, to translate (to re-state the data in their own words by changing expressions), to interpret (to explain the relationship between given information) and to extrapolate (to deduce by predicting content which is not shown). This attempt included the message that we should not make examinations for the sole purpose of checking learners' knowledge, although nobody denies the importance of learning Knowledge. It also tried to convey a message that we can upgrade the goals of education by making higher-level examination questions without sticking to Knowledge level. This notion is still important now, 50 years later from this discussion.

 While many researchers agreed that Comprehension beyond Knowledge was important as a learning objective, there were so many levels within Comprehension that it had to be subdivided. Then, they proposed classifying the cognitive domain into Knowledge, Comprehension and other levels. Comprehension, just above Knowledge, is the most basic objective of the domain when Knowledge is excluded. In addition, they regarded the ability to apply what was already learned to new tasks or situations as Application, the ability to decompose a problem into elements and reorganize them, and to grasp the overall structure as Analysis, the ability to combine parts to create a new structure as Synthesis and the ability to judge values and meanings as Evaluation (including their subdivisions). In reality, items of 2.0-6.0 are considered completely different from Knowledge (1.0), since they have enough content which can be represented as 2.1-2.5. As a evidence of this, the title of the category ranging from 2.0 to 6.0 is "Intellectual Ability and Skills." The title itself seems important, although little attention has been paid to it. To tell the truth, I had not noticed what the title meant until I started the current preparation for this program. I truly recognized that Bloom's taxonomy is worthy of spending much time on for a detailed review, but it's time to quit for now.

References

• Bloom, et al. (translated by Shibuya, Fujita and Kajita) Educational Assessment Method Handbook: Formative Assessment and Comprehensive Assessment of Subjects Learning (Daiichi-hoki shuppan, 1972) [In Japanese]


• Bloom, et al. (translated by Shibuya, Fujita and Kajita) Learning Assessment Handbook (I & II) (Daiichi-hoki shuppan, 1974) [In Japanese]


*Translation of the original book below after divided into three parts: Bloom, B. S., Hastings, J. T., & Madaus, G. F., Handbook on formative and summative evaluation of student learning (McGraw-Hill, 1971)