by Sarah Le-Fevre

Created on: November 07, 2009   Last Updated: November 10, 2009

Although Bloom's Taxonomy has been around for over 50 years, it remains an extremely useful tool for planning and creating learning programmes and lessons, as well as assessing progress. While some educational theories provide an overview of how learners learn, Bloom's classification of the types and levels of learning is totally practical, focusing as it does on the objectives of learning.

Benjamin Bloom, an educational psychologist, first published the Taxonomy in 1956. It is important to note that Bloom himself saw this as a start, and fully expected further work to be carried out on his ideas. This has happened and many changes and additions have been made over the years.

The Taxonomy recognises three domains of learning. Bloom believed that all learning activities fall into one of these three domains. Learning is characterised by a change in a learner in regard to a domain of learning. The original 1956 work looked at the Cognitive domain. The other two domains are the Affective domain and the Psychomotor domain. Each of the domains contains different levels relating to learning activities moving from the simple to the complex.

The Cognitive Domain

The Cognitive Domain relates to knowledge, thinking skills and comprehension. This would be the domain relating to academic courses of study. Learning in this domain would occur if there were a change in a learner's knowledge of some subject. Moving from the lowest to the highest, the levels are:

Knowledge Retaining the facts, principles and methodology of the subject area. This level should be attained before moving further up the levels. Learners demonstrate mastery of this level by answering questions such as 'Give the order of the main events leading to the start of World War I' or 'What are the groups of the Periodic Table?'. Examination questions posed at this level would ask candidates to 'Give', 'List' or 'State'.

Comprehension Showing understanding of facts by explanation, comparison and categorisation of the knowledge gained in first level activities. Learners could demonstrate this by answering questions such as 'Why did the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand lead to the outbreak of World War I?' or 'Why does chemical activity increase as the period increases in a metal group?'. Examination questions posed at this level might ask candidates to 'Explain', 'Describe' or 'Compare'.

Application Taking the knowledge and comprehension and applying it to new situations. Problem solving activities operate

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