Q 4: a) Explain the cognitive domain of Bloom’s Taxonomy of education objective.
Course: Educational Assessment and Evaluation
Course code 8602
Level: B.Ed Solved Assignment
Course code 8602
Level: B.Ed Solved Assignment
Answer:
Cognitive Domain of Bloom’s Taxonomy
Bloom's Taxonomy was created in 1956 under the leadership of educational psychologist Dr Benjamin Bloom to promote higher forms of thinking in education, such as analyzing and evaluating concepts, processes, procedures, and principles, rather than just remembering facts (rote learning). It is most often used when designing educational, training, and learning processes.
The Three Domains of Learning
The committee identified three domains of educational activities or learning (Bloom, et al. 1956):
- Cognitive: mental skills (knowledge)
- Affective: growth in feelings or emotional areas (attitude or self)
- Psychomotor: manual or physical skills (skills)
Since the work was produced by higher education, the words tend to be a little bigger than we normally use. Domains may be thought of as categories.
Instructional designers, trainers, and educators often refer to these three categories as KSA (Knowledge [cognitive], Skills [psychomotor], and Attitudes [affective]). This taxonomy of learning behaviors may be thought of as “the goals of the learning process.” That is, after a learning episode, the learner should have acquired a new skill, knowledge, and/or attitude. While the committee produced an elaborate compilation of the cognitive and affective domains, they omitted the psychomotor domain. Their explanation for this oversight was that they have little experience in teaching manual skills at the college level. However, there have been at least three psychomotor models created by other researchers.
Their compilation divides the three domains into subdivisions, starting from the simplest cognitive process or behavior to the most complex. The divisions outlined are not absolutes and some other systems or hierarchies have been devised, such as the Structure of Observed Learning Outcome (SOLO). However, Bloom's taxonomy is easily understood and is probably the most widely applied one in use today.
Cognitive Domain
The cognitive domain involves knowledge and the development of intellectual skills (Bloom, 1956). This includes the recall or recognition of specific facts, procedural patterns, and concepts that serve in the development of intellectual abilities and skills. There are six major categories of cognitive processes, starting from the simplest to the most complex (see the table below for an in-depth coverage of each category):
- Knowledge
- Comprehension
- Application
- Analysis
- Synthesis
- Evaluation
The categories can be thought of as degrees of difficulty. That is, the first ones must normally be mastered before the next one can take place.
Bloom's Revised Taxonomy
Lorin Anderson, a former student of Bloom, and David Krathwohl revisited the cognitive domain in the mid-nineties and made some changes, with perhaps the three most prominent ones being (Anderson, Krathwohl, Airasian, Cruikshank, Mayer, Pintrich, Raths, Wittrock, 2000):
- changing the names in the six categories from noun to verb forms
- rearranging them as shown in the chart below
- creating a processes and levels of knowledge matrix
