About Bloom’s Taxonomy

What is commonly referred to as Bloom’s Taxonomy in early learning circles is one of a set of three hierarchical models named after Benjamin Bloom, chair of the committee of educators that created them. The three models the committee devised, published in 1956, covered the cognitive, affective, and psychomotor domains. The cognitive taxonomy is the best-known and is what most people are referring to when they mention Bloom’s Taxonomy.

The framework Bloom and his peers developed included six categories. They are listed below with a description from the original publication, Taxonomy Of Educational Objectives (Handbook One, 201-207):

• Knowledge— “involves the recall of specifics and universals, the recall of methods and processes, or the recall of a pattern, structure, or setting”
• Comprehension— “refers to a type of understanding or apprehension such that the individual knows what is being communicated and can make use of the material or idea being communicated without necessarily relating it to other material or seeing its fullest implications”
• Application— refers to the “use of abstractions in particular and concrete situations”
• Analysis— represents the “breakdown of a communication into its constituent elements or parts such that the relative hierarchy of ideas is made clear and/or the relations between ideas expressed are made explicit”
• Synthesis— involves the “putting together of elements and parts so as to form a whole”
• Evaluation— engenders “judgments about the value of material and methods for given purposes”

Revised in 2001

A group of psychologists, theorists, and researchers revised Bloom’s Taxonomy in 2001. This revision altered the names of the levels and reordered them. This revised version is commonly referred to as Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy.

Free PDF of Bloom’s Revised Cognitive Taxonomy

Click the below image for a free PDF illustrating Bloom’s revised taxonomy:

More About Bloom’s Taxonomy

This 10-minute video takes a deeper dive into the topic:

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