Dear Nageswara Rao Posinasetti :

It is true that our examination system uses the cognitive skills - but Bloom's taxonomy helps us in good "distribution" of the questions at various levels - lower, intermediate and higher (consisting of Bloom's six cognitive skills in a ladder) - so that students perform better in the exams.

I find Bloom's taxonomy very useful and I'm studying research papers on this.

Best wishes,

Sundar

One of the most widely used ways of organizing levels of expertise is according to Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. (Bloom et al., 1994). Bloom's Taxonomy uses a multi-tiered scale to express the level of expertise required to achieve each measurable student outcome. 

The original Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives are shown here: The action verbs used with these levels is given in the attached link.

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.”

In fact in our examination system depending upon the type of subject we use it all the time. The various forms such as quizzes, tutorials, tests, examinations and projects all have these built into them.

http://www.clemson.edu/assessment/assessmentpractices/referencematerials/documents/Blooms%20Taxonomy%20Action%20Verbs.pdf

Dear Nageswara Rao Posinasetti :

It is true that our examination system uses the cognitive skills - but Bloom's taxonomy helps us in good "distribution" of the questions at various levels - lower, intermediate and higher (consisting of Bloom's six cognitive skills in a ladder) - so that students perform better in the exams.

I find Bloom's taxonomy very useful and I'm studying research papers on this.

Best wishes,

Sundar

Please allow me to illustrate how setting exam questions is done in chemistry (my specialization) & I think that most, if not all, the colleagues here will find them easy questions.

1) Knowledge: What is the formula of sulfuric acid?

2) Comprehension: Fill in the blanks: A 92% of sulfuric acid in water is described as ___________ solution while a 10% of sulfuric acid in water is ___________ solution.

3) Application: What is the major end use of sulfuric acid or what industry buys most of this acid?

4) Analysis: Sulfuric acid is a compound composed of H, S, and O. Which element has the highest percentage in it?

5) Synthesis: Sulfuric acid was produced by the lead chamber process but now most of it is made by the contact process. Show, by equations, how the 2 methods are done.

6) Evaluation: Why a sulfuric acid industrial plant is born big while many other industries start from small-scale production and end up eventually producing on a large-scale?

Thank you Sundarapandian for the question, and well done Dr Matar for the illustration.. nice example.

I think not all exams should include the above six cognitive skills.... providing a multi-level questions test is heavily affected by Three main factors: nature and size of the course, level of the program (under or post grad) and the exam context (number of students and their levels, exam room, forms, time.....etc.)

Regards

I visited Universiti Sains Malaysia - Penang in 2013 and I was very impressed by the faculty activities, faculty-students interaction and teaching-learning process adopted there. I hope there is no problem at Universitiy level in Malaysia.

It is very likely that many universities may be adopting Bloom's taxonomy of six cognitive skills without using the terminologies. But the idea of breaking up the questions to test all the six cognitive abilities aids in a "good distribution" of questions in paper-setting - instead of just memorizing from books or help-books (problem solvers!) & reproducing them in exams.

With best wishes

Sundar

Dear all,

unfortunately applying Bloom's taxonomy is not that easy. 

As for the examples of Dr. Matar: I assume that  depending on the exact teaching content  questions 1 to 5 will be in most cases related to the knowledge level of the taxonomy. Creating (and assessing!) exam questions of taxonomy levels 4 to 6 is very challenging. I think that still most exam questions also in higher education are on level 1 and 2, perhaps even 3.

Here are some examples that might be helpful:

http://712educators.about.com/od/Blooms-Taxonomy/tp/Blooms-Taxonomy-Questions.htm

Kind regards

PS: I am not an expert but I would say that the proofs that my students have to make in exams (e.g. for the decidability of a language (theoretical informatics)) are max. at Bloom's level 3 as they have seen and practiced examples of such proofs before. This in spite of the fact that I use the wording "Proof that...."

Sundarapandian

I agree that Bloom's taxonomy provides a useful framework for assessment design. However, Anderson and Krathwohl's revision of the taxonomy into a table with cognitive process dimension and knowledge dimension as the two axes is a really practical tool and is much more effective (2001). See  page 25-27 of Bloxham & Boyd (2007) for an explanation of how that can work. We have used this table in many workshops with academics from several countries and it works really well. I have added a handout on assessment design, this version is written for school teachers really but the principles are the same for HE tutors and it stems from our handbook below (2007).

Anderson & Krathwohl 2001 A taxonomy of learning, teaching and assessing...Longman

Bloxham & Boyd 2007 Developing effective assessment in higher education...Open University Press

Thanks for the attachment. The spiral in the figure is important.  as it reminds that the assessment taxonomy levels and the form of assessment must comply to the learning outcomes and the teaching methods...

Not very useful.  Knowledge of the particular domain is key. It will be different for physics & English or engineering or medicine or nursing.

tie the questions to course learning objectives and  look at previous work in the DISCIPLINE. Eg. Force concepts inventiory for physics

I do not have an experiance with the contant of question. I do not want either to reproduced ideas from internet, if I do not have a knowledge myself.

Great question!

Bloom's taxonomy is very much needed. This is the basis for textbooks having learning objectives at the beginning of each chapter. Also, process verbs begin each objective as an indication of the mental ability level (cognitive level: K, C, A, A, S, or E) that the learning objective is targeting in terms of teaching and learning. Therefore, Bloom , et al (1956) will always be a part of instructional methods. Objectives are designed to pre-determine the targeted level of instruction and then the test are designed to measure the level of learning that occurred at the targeted level of instruction. If you teach students at the knowledge level they should be tested at the knowledge level, etc.

...I also recently published an article that is precisely on this topic if anyone should want a deeper understanding of Benjamin Bloom and the cognitive domain theory and its practical uses.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/263279816_performance_appraisals_and_the_cognitive_domain?ev=prf_pub

Article performance appraisals and the cognitive domain

Dear Reginald! Thanks for sharing your paper on this topic! We shall read it.

Best wishes

Sundar

Thank you all for your answers. I personally find taking Bloom's Taxonomy into account in course design to be worthwhile, particularly in helping to achieve better distribution of the questions at various levels.

I personally use it in ensuring course learning objectives and outcomes are properly framed. More importantly to set test items which are valid and balanced.