A Basic Objection To Blooms Taxonomy
A Basic Objection To Blooms Taxonomy
A Basic Objection To Blooms Taxonomy
Bloom's Taxonomy of Cognitive Objectives, articulated by Benjamin Bloom (and a task force swept up in his vision) in the early
50's, is usually neglected in current discussions of critical thinking theory, even though among schools of education and curriculum writers
it remains pervasively influential. Symptoms of this influence often include talk about "higher order thinking skills." Piaget's account of
cognitive development as generally a movement from concrete processing toward formal or abstract reasoning is sometimes cited as
justification for the approach (it sometimes also is taken as justification for taking formal logic as critical thinking).
One problem with Bloom's Taxonomy can be seen in the relation of the lowest level of thinking skills, memory, with those which
are allegedly higher. Laying this out requires we review the broad framework of the taxonomy, stressing the relationships among
abstractions and examples. I give the higher levels at the top, so first, though this reverses the alleged stages of cognitive development.
Evaluation is bringing a set of criteria to bear on an example. E.g. Critique the following lesson plan. (Followed by an example
of a lesson plan.)
Synthesis is putting together a work using elements dictated by a pre-existing framework or structure. E.g. Design a house to
take advantage of the resources available, consistent with the desires of the buyers, and in harmony with the site.
Analysis is providing an accounting of a whole by accounting for its parts, using a set of categories which label the kinds of
parts. E.g. Analyze Shakespeare's Hamlet as an Aristotelian tragedy.
Application is bringing an abstract theory's claims to bear on a particular example. E.g. Apply Freudian methods to the dream
Orestes tells of the eagle and the snake.
Interpretation is comparison and contrast of two works or sets of ideas, telling how they fit or do not fit each other, but using a
set of given topics or categories by which the two are to be compared. E.g. Compare and contrast the scene in which Cleopatra first
appears on stage in Shakespeare's play with the scene in which Jimmy Dean first appears in Giant, given a set of categories or ways in
which the two might be comparable (e.g., metaphors and similes, prosody, literary allusions, religious allusions).
Translation is changing the terms, mode, or language of given information. E.g. Graph the acceleration of the Dodge R/T and
the Volkswagen Beetle given the table of distances covered.
Memory is retaining and providing back information as given.
As a highly abstract theory about a mythological entity (“Cognitive Objectives”), Bloom’s Taxonomy exemplifies some of the
best and the worst results one finds when philosophy as conceptual analysis meets education. At that level, it’s probably untestable and
harmless, interesting in the way a Ptolemaic orrery might be interesting. Each level can be thought of as a concept nested within the one
below (except that analysis and synthesis are both within the concept of application), for instance. But those who talk about Bloom’s
Taxonomy often make the strategic mistake of supposing that it ought to be applicable, and it is often claimed to be useful in thinking
about teaching strategies and thinking about examination questions. It has become, then, a staple in teaching teachers and teaching study
skills to students. Further, it is after moves to apply it that we can get our hands on it and indicate its problems.
The taxonomy as given above (and in its main variants–sometimes there are six rather than seven categories) is used in study
skills classes to emphasize to students that all the “higher level skills” test questions can be regarded as having hidden agendas. If one is to
evaluate, one has to have the criteria to bring to bear, not make them up on the spot. If one is to synthesize, one has to know the kinds
of elements one is expected to put together into a new whole. If one is to analyze, one needs to know the categories or kinds of pieces
which are expected to result from the analysis. If one is to apply a theory, the methods and possible results are unstated parts of the
question. If one is to interpret, then one had better use the aspects or dimensions of interpretation which are to be used in these kinds of
cases. Translation in the sense used in the taxonomy requires one to bring mastery of a particular process to bear on original material.
Memory, then, is the only one in which some process which alters or generates something new is not brought to bear.
But another way to say this is that the higher level thinking skills crucially involve remembering the abstract categories which are
to be used, and remembering to use them. The analysis of the categories into higher and lower, with memory as the lowest of the low, is
thus seen as problematic, at least as used in thinking about exam questions and their answers.
One possible explanation for taking memory to be lower is that memory is always specific. A memory is a particular memory, a
memory of something at a particular time. But abstract categories do not always have this property. An ideal (e.g. as in James’ “The
Relevance of an Impossible Ideal”) is not necessarily a particular ideal; a flower, as a category, need not be a particular flower; and so on.
A prejudice in favor of abstraction, such as Bloom and Piaget share, will then prejudice one against memory, and perhaps incline one to
label it as a lower skill. This too, though, has problems when subjected to scrutiny. If one is to analyze a work of literature, and is to
master the higher level skills required, and so, say, comment on plays of this kind by addressing plot, characterization, tone, poetic
language, theme, and so on, what this means is that the student is to master the higher level skill by bringing those particular categories, or that
particular list to bear on the literary work. This remains true, by the way, even when one engages in this kind of analysis at another remove,
analyzing theories of criticism by applying to a work theories labeled as Marxist, New Critic, Critical Theory, Deconstructive, Freudian,
and so on, (some perhaps straw men) and then evaluating those theories using often obscure but crucial criteria for evaluating theories
which the student should endeavor to list or use as headings. –which brings us to:
Another possible explanation is that the higher skills are not taught so well, and students must teach themselves. That is, the
process of writing a research paper in a particular discipline might be the topic of a course for which students finally write a research
paper, a classic synthesis task. If the teacher models the process well, the student may come to realize on her own, without it ever having
been made explicit, that she needs to include, e.g., a literature survey, . . . a hypothesis, a conclusion. To the extent that the teacher does
not make the synthesizing process (or dimensions of comparision, or theory to be applied, or the list of analytic tools, or categories of
materials to synthesize, or the criteria of evaluation) a topic for overt teaching, then the teacher avoids making the task a memory task but
“teaches” the students to swim by throwing them in. Surely that must make it a higher level skill.
As such, these approaches (logic, Piaget, Bloom) leave unaddressed the issues regarding whether abstraction is more crucial to
education (or to philosophy) than is storytelling, say, or focusing on examples. This is an issue in which western civilization's convictions
might be compared with cultures in which parables and examples are taken to be primary. But it is also an issue which perhaps could be
approached through investigating Piaget and Bloom's Taxonomy and philosophical work regarding the place of examples in
understanding..
jwp2@humboldt.edu