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The Bloom Taxonomy of Educational Objectives was revised Spring 2001.
This note describes the revisions that were recently made to the taxonomy reported in your textbook. It is easier to understand and use in many ways, so you may use either one you wish in doing your test construction project.Review of the changes
First, the revised Bloom taxonomy gives slightly different names to the 6 levels of the hierarchy:- remember (was knowledge)
- understand (was comprehension)
- apply (was application)
- analyze (was analysis)
- evaluate (was evaluation)
- create (was synthesis)
Second, the last two categories have been reversed, putting create (synthesis) as the most complex level.
As you can see, the verbs have also been clarified.
These changes clear up two big questions that many people had in trying to use the taxonomy.
- What is the difference between comprehension and application
- The panel decided that they overlap because understanding is a very broad term. It had been hard to distinguish which of the two many test items were tapping. (It may sometimes be both.) Both categories now have clearer verbs.
- What does evaluation really mean?
- The chief confusion was that evaluation is usually less complex than synthesis, which made it difficult to think of what sorts of test items would represent "evaluation." "Evaluate" now has a clearer meaning.
Source for revised taxonomy: Anderson, L. W., & Krathwohl, D. R. (2001). A taxonomy for learning, teaching, and assessing: A revision of Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives. New York: Addison Wesley Longman.
http://www.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/451/revisedbloom.html
