Reevaluating Bloom’s Taxonomy: What Measurable Verbs Can and Cannot Say about Student Learning

Abstract

Faculty and assessment professionals rely on Bloom's taxonomy to guide them when they write measurable student learning outcomes and describe their goals for developing students' thinking skills. Over the past ten years, assessment offices and teaching and learning centers have compiled lists of measurable verbs aligned with the six categories that comprise Bloom's taxonomy. The author analyzed 30 compilations posted on web sites and evaluated how well these verbs aligned with categories in Bloom's taxonomy. The author discusses the value of Bloom's taxonomy as a heuristic for writing student learning outcomes and other factors faculty should consider when they articulate learning outcomes to describe levels of expertise attained by students who complete an associate's, bachelor's, or graduate degree.

Evaluation of an educational course for primary care physiotherapists on comorbidity‐adapted exercise therapy in knee osteoarthritis: an observational study

“…After following the course, PTs treated patients with knee OA and comorbidity during a 6‐month period. We evaluated basic knowledge levels (factual knowledge and comprehension) of practitioners about managing patients with knee OA and comorbidities by a multiple choice test before (T0) and 2 weeks after the course (T1) (Stanny, ). We also tested more advanced knowledge levels (application and analysis, i.e.…”

“…This questionnaire comprised 60 multiple‐choice (three answer options) questions, which required approximately 60 min of PTs time. Blooms' taxonomy was used to formulate questions on various levels from factual knowledge up to comprehension levels (Stanny, ). A correct answer yielded one point with a total range score of 0–60, with a higher score indicating more knowledge.…”

“…For measuring clinical reasoning skills, a vignette of a patient with knee OA and comorbidity (diabetes type 2 and coronary disease) was described with nine open questions mainly based on the application – analysis level of knowledge (Stanny, ). Vignettes are a valid way to measure clinical reasoning skills by PTs (van Dulmen et al, ).…”

Untitled

“…We recognized that many of the INRW SLOs re ected the Bloom s (1956) taxonomy of levels of understanding in the verbs that were components of the course objectives: understanding, comprehending, analyzing, evaluating, and creating (as cited in Stanny, 2016). On the other hand, the HUMA 1301 SLOs centered on students gaining an in-depth understanding of a variety of texts and learning how these texts re ected their times.…”

A Situational Analysis of English Language Learning among Eastern Indonesian Students

“…To make it well-organized, this study used six level of learning developed by Benjamin S. Bloom known as Bloom's Taxonomy as analysis framework based on the practice of preparation, organization, actuation and control in educational management. Blooms proposed six level of learning as listed in one of research journals: knowledge, understanding, application, analysis, evaluation and creation [15]. Table 2 presented students' point of view toward Eastern Indonesian English teachers.…”