A Critical Appraisal of Bloom's Taxonomy - 2016
A Critical Appraisal of Bloom's Taxonomy - 2016
A Critical Appraisal of Bloom's Taxonomy - 2016
ISSN(online)- 2378-9026
Volume 2, 2016 9 Pages
Research Article Open Access
A Critical Appraisal of Bloom’s Taxonomy
Seyyed Mohammad Ali Soozandehfar (PhD)
Assistant Professor of TEFL
Hormozgan University, Bandar Abbas, Iran
[email protected]
Mohammad Reza Adeli (MA)
University Instructor of English Language and Literature
Hormozgan University, Bandar Abbas, Iran
[email protected]
Abstract:This investigation intends to criticize Bloom’s original and revised taxonomies which has been
utilized since 1956 and was revised in 2001, respectively. First, this study goes through the description of
the original and the revised taxonomies. Second, it starts explaining the major criticisms on Bloom’s original
taxonomy. Third, it also explicates a number of criticisms on the revised taxonomy. Moreover, the article wraps
up the criticisms with several ancillary criticisms, in general. Furthermore, the study summarizes all the major
criticisms in the form of a figure. Finally, some implications are proposed for those who tend to apply Bloom’s
taxonomy in their investigations.
Keywords: Bloom, Taxonomy, Revised Taxonomy, Original Taxonomy, Criticism, Critical Evaluation.
1. Introduction
Bloom’s taxonomy is a skeleton that was constructed to categorize the goals of any curriculum in terms of
explicit and implicit cognitive skills and abilities. This taxonomy is regarded as one of the crucial models that
contribute to the curriculum development in the 21st century. In this vein, a search engine presents more than
817,000 results for the keyword “Bloom’s taxonomy.” Bloom’s taxonomy perseveres in and survives against the
time. It has been expanded, elaborated, and interpreted in various ways and its breadth has been expounded
on. As a result of searches and studies on original taxonomy, many comments and implementations which are
different in certain ways are presented form drafting work to broadened instructions. Despite the varieties,
only one revision is accepted (Forehand, 2005).
This revision was designed by an old student of Bloom, Lorin W. Andreson and David R. Krathwohl (2003), who
is one of the designers of the original taxonomy.
In 1999, Dr. Lorin Anderson, a former student of Bloom’s, and his colleagues published an updated version
of Bloom’s Taxonomy that takes into account a broader range of factors that have an impact on teaching and
learning. This revised taxonomy attempts to correct some of the problems with the original taxonomy. Unlike
the 1956 version, the revised taxonomy differentiates between “knowing what,” the content of thinking, and
“knowing how,” the procedures used in solving problems. The Knowledge Dimension is the “knowing what.”
It has four categories: factual, conceptual, procedural, and metacognitive. Factual knowledge includes isolated
bits of information, such as vocabulary definitions and knowledge about specific details. Conceptual knowledge
consists of systems of information, such as classifications and categories. Procedural knowledge includes
algorithms, heuristics or rules of thumb, techniques, and methods as well as knowledge about when to use these
procedures. Metacognitive knowledge refers to knowledge of thinking processes and information about how to
manipulate these processes effectively. The Cognitive Process Dimension of the revised Bloom’s Taxonomy like
the original version has six skills.
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They are, from simplest to most complex: remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, and create.
Remembering consists of recognizing and recalling relevant information from long-term memory. Understanding
is the ability to make your own meaning from educational material such as reading and teacher explanations.
The sub-skills for this process include interpreting, exemplifying, classifying, summarizing, inferring,
comparing, and explaining. The third process, applying, refers to using a learned procedure either in a familiar
or new situation. The next process is analysis, which consists of breaking knowledge down into its parts and
thinking about how the parts relate to its overall structure. Students analyze by differentiating, organizing,
and attributing. Evaluation, which is at the top of the original taxonomy, is the fifth of the six processes in the
revised version. It includes checking and critiquing. Creating, a process not included in the earlier taxonomy, is
the highest component of the new version. This skill involves putting things together to make something new.
To accomplish creating tasks, learners generate, plan, and produce. According to this taxonomy, each level of
knowledge can correspond to each level of cognitive process, so a student can remember factual or procedural
knowledge, understand conceptual or metacognitive knowledge, or analyze metacognitive or factual knowledge.
According to Anderson and his colleagues, “Meaningful learning provides students with the knowledge and
cognitive processes they need for successful problem solving”. The following figure compares Bloom’s original
taxonomy (1956) with the revised version (2001).
2. Criticisms
Today’s world is a different place, however, than the one Bloom’s Taxonomy reflected in 1956. Educators have
learned a great deal more about how students learn and teachers teach and now recognize that teaching and
learning encompasses more than just thinking. It also involves the feelings and beliefs of students and teachers
as well as the social and cultural environment of the classroom. Several cognitive psychologists have worked
to make the basic concept of a taxonomy of thinking skills more relevant and accurate. In developing his own
taxonomy of educational objectives, Marzano (2000) points out one criticism of Bloom’s Taxonomy. The very
structure of the Taxonomy, moving from the simplest level of knowledge to the most difficult level of evaluation,
is not supported by research. A hierarchical taxonomy implies that each higher skill is composed of the skills
beneath it; comprehension requires knowledge; application requires comprehension and knowledge, and so
on. This, according to Marzano (2000), is simply not true of the cognitive processes in Bloom’s Taxonomy. The
originators of the original six thinking processes assumed that complex projects could be labeled as requiring
one of the processes more than the others. A task was primarily an “analysis” or an “evaluation” task. This has
been proven not to be true which may account for the difficulty that educators have classifying challenging
learning activities using the Taxonomy.
Anderson (2000) argues that nearly all complex learning activities require the use of several different cognitive
skills. Like any theoretical model, Bloom’s Taxonomy has its strengths and weaknesses. Its greatest strength
is that it has taken the very important topic of thinking and placed a structure around it that is usable by
practitioners. Those teachers who keep a list of question prompts relating to the various levels of Bloom’s
Taxonomy undoubtedly do a better job of encouraging higher-order thinking in their students than those who
have no such tool. On the other hand, as anyone who has worked with a group of educators to classify a group
of questions and learning activities according to the Taxonomy can attest, there is little consensus about what
seemingly self-evident terms like “analysis,” or “evaluation” mean. In addition, so many worthwhile activities,
such as authentic problems and projects, cannot be mapped to the Taxonomy, and trying to do that would
diminish their potential as learning opportunities. In the following sections, this study presents several in-
depth criticisms.
2.1. Criticisms on Bloom’s Original Taxonomy
2.1.1. Anachronism
Quite a few new theories and approaches have been involved in the literature as a result of researches carried
out in educational and psychological terms since the date when Bloom’s taxonomy was published. Theory and
approaches such as constructivism, metacognitive skills and self-regulated learning affect the educational
process, support autonomous learning and cognitive and perceptual necessity of being responsible of the
learning process. These theories and approaches clear up the necessity of the taxonomy revision (Amer, 2006).
Today’s world is different from Bloom’s taxonomy that reflects features of 1956. In this day and time educators
have more knowledge about how learning takes place and how teachers lecture (Startalk, 2009). In this case,
the shortcoming of the taxonomy and the need for an appropriate structure to become a learner-centered
becomes conspicuous.
2.1.2. Agglomeration
Bloom’s taxonomy has an additive sort of structure. It steps forward based on the degree of difficulty, and
according to the need to activate a former one for the next step. There is chiseled ranking of sections. The
taxonomy presents its cognitive process in categories. They are different from each other just in terms of
difficulty. However, the rigid hierarchy between categories was later softened up and overlapping between
categories was provided (Krathwohl, 2002).
2.1.3. Lack of Constructivist Integration
Constructivism emphasizes how students create knowledge while they are busy with meaningful learning.
Constructing process requires both comparing new information with old ones and using necessary various
cognitive processes for this information. In this taxonomy, students may not be able to participate in an active
way in learning process. Students might not be able to select the information themselves and form their own
meaning on their own. In this taxonomy, it is essential for some students to reach up the top level. Today, it is
expected that every student should make progress on an integrative basis. For this reason, combining program
objectives, teaching, and assessment is more crucial than ever merged (Pickard, 2007).
2.1.4. Unilateral Levels
Knowledge level consists of both noun and verb forms in the taxonomy. Whereas target dimension described
as noun form is situated in the wide frame bottom steps of knowledge step, verb forms describing cognitional
process is defined as students’ recognizing and remembering the knowledge. As a consequence of that
knowledge step expected to have two dimensional characteristics becomes unilateral. Unilateral structure
of the taxonomy fails within the scope of cognitional process. In the knowledge-sized taxonomy students are
asked for both knowing the knowledge and remembering it. Although this abnormality has been changed in the
revised taxonomy, again this latter one is unidirectional since it takes into account the verb aspect of cognitional
process (Krathwohl, 2002).
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constitutes a complex and long structure for teachers. In other words, although it provides teachers with a
powerful tool to develop better lesson plans (Forehand, 2005), it is so complicated for them to put it into
practice.
2.2.4. Equivocal Weightings
Bloom’s taxonomy was revised in order to be adjusted to suit the more outcome-focused modern education
objectives. The level of synthesis is placed at one step higher than the level of evaluation. However, levels of
evaluation and synthesis are both significant, and none of them is superior to the other. Both of them are the
equal from the aspect of complexity. Once either of them is omitted in the process of problem solving, the
efficiency of the process declines. Moreover, terminological insight was ignored. In this vein, content sufficiency
must be questioned. Also, it seems problematic that knowledge is placed into the same process with skills and
abilities, especially into the lowest level of the process.
2.3. Some Ancillary Criticisms on Bloom’s Taxonomy
2.3.1. Discordant Application
Benjamin Bloom (1956) proposed the taxonomy of Educational Objectives, i.e. Cognitive Domain, and the
six-level explication of thinking which has been broadly harmonized and applied in innumerable contexts
so far. His tabulation of cognitive processes is constituted from the most facile, the recall of knowledge, to
the most complicated, making judgments about the value and worth of an idea. With regard to the Revised
Bloom Taxonomy, alterations are observed in three main territories. These include: Terminology, Structure, and
Emphasis (Forehand, 2005; Krathwohl, & Anderson, 2003). Bloom’s Taxonomy is broadly cited in many teacher
training programs in reference to how students learn and how to teach. However, it has been maintained
that Bloom’s Taxonomy is more often than not interpreted incorrectly. Booker (2007) believes that “Bloom’s
Taxonomy has been used to devalue basic skills education and has promoted “higher order thinking” at its
expense” (2007, p.248). In other words, lower order skills such as knowledge and comprehension are being
considered as less critical or invaluable skills. Being referred to as lower order skills does not make knowledge
or comprehension any less important, rather they are arguably the most important cognitive skills because
knowledge of and comprehension of a subject is vital in advancing up the levels of the taxonomy. Therefore,
in line with Booker’s conclusion, the Taxonomy is being improperly used. Bloom never stated that any of his
cognitive levels were less important, just that they followed a hierarchical structure. Booker (2007) points
out that even Bloom himself recognized that the application of the taxonomy was unexpectedly happening at
the K-12 level and much less so at the university/college level. Ultimately, the criticism lies with the intention
behind the application of Bloom’s Taxonomy and not with Bloom himself.
2.3.2. Indefiniteness of the Taxonomies
The original taxonomy has been widely acclaimed and commonly used in our country as in the whole world,
and it will obviously be in use for a long time. However, as for everything related to human being, a revision for
the taxonomy has become inevitable with the proceeds of the new millennium. In this regard, Anderson and
Krathworlh (2001) must be acclaimed and thanked for their studies. However, it must be taken into account that
also the revised taxonomy might not be a reliable source since it is required to be made more comprehensible
at higher levels and to be interiorized by the educators, and also, related samples of various disciplines are
required to be built up in the literature in order to enable school teachers to utilize the revised version. From
this aspect, curriculum developers must be informed to be more careful in the implementation of this revised
one.
2.3.3. Misinterpretations of the Contents
Bloom’s Taxonomy is often misinterpreted and misapplied by educators. Repeatedly, it is observed that educators
interpret the lower levels of thinking to be appropriate for introductory and survey level college courses and
that the higher order thinking skills are appropriate for advanced, or junior, senior, and graduate level courses.
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The impact of that is that early college learners in those courses are limited to only rote knowledge experiences.
Of course, that is a problem with the implementation of Bloom’s theory and not the theory itself. However, it is
still crucial given the impact that Bloom’s has on the learning experience, and it leads into a related argument.
2.3.4. Contempt for Proficiency Level
Bloom’s Taxonomy – at least in its popular repetitions – fails to acknowledge that learners may perform at
varying levels of proficiency within each type of higher order thinking skill. It’s not that an early college learner
is incapable of application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation; they simply will not perform with an expert
level of proficiency in those higher order thinking skills; they should be expected to apply, analyze, synthesize,
evaluate, or create, but they will do that at a novice level. For example, a student in a first year micro-biology
class can and should be expected to apply knowledge of cell structures and epidemiology to identify a particular
organism; however, the level of difficulty of the problem should be appropriate for the first year micro-biology
student and not require advanced declarative or procedural knowledge which typically requires advanced
study in micro-biology.
2.3.5. Unauthentic Abstract Nature
Technology makes possible many more avenues for students to perform and to be assessed; the range of
simulations and interaction that can be created through technology enables more authentic problem solving
opportunities. Plus, the increasing demands in academia and the workplace for learners to be better prepared
suggest learners need more authentic learning experiences. The combination of those to facts indicates
learners need to be performing to apply knowledge in as close to “real life” situations as possible. This supports
Startalk’s (2009) argument that “all objectives are at the use level (that is, “performance” objectives) and that
learners will practice or be assessed on the particular performance in representative task situations.” We
should be observing students performing as they will need to in the future – and measure that performance, at
whatever level of expertise is appropriately and reasonably expected of that learner given their prior learning
experiences. Simply “knowing” or “comprehending” something is not enough. Perhaps classroom assessment
would benefit from focusing on simply engaging learners with active, collaborative and authentic learning
experiences and measuring their performance according to the level of expertise the learners should exhibit in
that environment.
2.3.6. Oversimplification of Thought
As influential as Bloom’s Taxonomy has been on educational practice, it has experienced some severe criticisms
(for a review, see Kreitzer & Madaus, 1994). One of the most common criticisms was that the taxonomy
oversimplified the nature of thought and its relationship to learning (Furst, 1994). The taxonomy certainly
expanded the conception of learning from a simple, unidimensional, behaviorist model to one that was
multidimensional and more constructivist in nature. However, it assumed a rather simple construct of difficulty
as the characteristic separating one level from another: Superordinate levels involved more difficult cognitive
processes than did subordinate levels. The research conducted on Bloom’s Taxonomy simply did not support
this structure. For example, educators who were trained in the structure of Bloom’s Taxonomy were consistently
unable to recognize questions at higher levels as more difficult than questions at lower levels of the taxonomy
(see Fairbrother, 1975; Poole, 1972; Stanley & Bolton, 1957).
2.3.7. Incompatible Hierarchy
Some problems with Bloom’s Taxonomy were indirectly acknowledged by its authors. This is evidenced in their
discussion of analysis: “It is probably more defensible educationally to consider analysis as an aid to fuller
comprehension (a lower class level) or as a prelude to an evaluation of the material” (p. 144). The authors also
acknowledged problems with the taxonomy’s structure in their discussion of evaluation. They state that although
evaluation is placed last in the cognitive domain because it is regarded as requiring to some extent all the other
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categories of behavior, it is not necessarily the last step in thinking or problem solving. It is quite possible that
the evaluation process will in some cases be the prelude to the acquisition of new knowledge, a new attempt at
comprehension or application, or a new analysis and synthesis. Therefore, in general, the hierarchical structure
of Bloom’s Taxonomy simply did not hold together well from logical or empirical perspectives. As Rohwer and
Sloane (1994) note, the structure claimed for the hierarchy, then, resembles a hierarchy (p. 47). The following
figure summarizes all the critical issues mentioned above.
Krathwohl, D. & Anderson, L. (2003). Bloom’s Taxonomy. Retrieved 12 April 2012, from http://www.education.
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Pickard, M., J. (2007). The New Bloom’s Taxonomy: An Overview for Family and Consumer Sciences. Journal of
Family and Consumer Sciences Education, 25(1), 45-55.
Startalk. (2009). Designing Effective Projects: Thinking Skills Frameworks Bloom’s Taxonomy: A New Look
at an Old. Retrieved 5 January 2012, from http://startalk.umd.edu/teacher-development/workshop/2009/
GVA/content/assets/documents/NewBloomsTaxonomy.
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revised taxonomy). The First International Congress on Curriculum and Instruction, 05-08 October, Eskisehir,
Turkey.
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Citation: Seyyed Mohammad Ali Soozandehfar (PhD), Mohammad Reza Adeli (MA) Assistant Professor of TEFL,
Hormozgan University, Bandar Abbas, Iran A Critical Appraisal of Bloom’s Taxonomy American ReserachJournal
of English and Literature Volume 2, 2016; pp:1-9
Copyright © 2016 Seyyed Mohammad Ali Soozandehfar (PhD), Mohammad Reza Adeli (MA) This is an
open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use,
distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.