Bloom’s taxonomy is a set of three hierarchical models used to classify educational learning objectives into levels of complexity and specificity. The three lists cover the learning objectives in cognitive, affective and sensory domains. The cognitive domain list has been the primary focus of most traditional education and is frequently used to structure curriculum learning objectives, assessments and activities.
The models were named after Benjamin Bloom, who chaired the committee of educators that devised the taxonomy. He also edited the first volume of the standard text, Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: The Classification of Educational Goals
Criticism of the taxonomy[edit]
As Morshead (1965) pointed out on the publication of the second volume, the classification was not a properly constructed taxonomy, as it lacked a systemic rationale of construction.
This was subsequently acknowledged in the discussion of the original taxonomy in its 2001 revision,[9] and the taxonomy was reestablished on more systematic lines.
Some critiques of the taxonomy’s cognitive domain admit the existence of these six categories but question the existence of a sequential, hierarchical link.[14] Often, educators view the taxonomy as a hierarchy and may mistakenly dismiss the lowest levels as unworthy of teaching.[15][16] The learning of the lower levels enables the building of skills in the higher levels of the taxonomy, and in some fields, the most important skills are in the lower levels (such as identification of species of plants and animals in the field of natural history).[15][16] Instructional scaffolding of higher-level skills from lower-level skills is an application of Vygotskian constructivism.[17][18]
Some consider the three lowest levels as hierarchically ordered, but the three higher levels as parallel.[9] Others say that it is sometimes better to move to Application before introducing concepts,[citation needed] the idea is to create a learning environment where the real world context comes first and the theory second to promote the student’s grasp of the phenomenon, concept or event. This thinking would seem to relate to the method of problem-based learning.
Furthermore, the distinction between the categories can be seen as artificial since any given cognitive task may entail a number of processes. It could even be argued that any attempt to nicely categorize cognitive processes into clean, cut-and-dried classifications undermines the holistic, highly connective and interrelated nature of cognition.[19] This is a criticism that can be directed at taxonomies of mental processes in general.
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