THEORY INTO PRACTICE / Autumn 2002

Revising Bloom’s Taxonomy

David R. Krathwohl

A Revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy:

An Overview

T HE TAXONOMY OF EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES Bloom saw the original Taxonomy as more than a
measurement tool. He believed it could serve as a
is a framework for classifying statements of
what we expect or intend students to learn as a result • common language about learning goals to
of instruction. The framework was conceived as a facili-tate communication across persons, subject
means of facilitating the exchange of test items matter, and grade levels;
among faculty at various universities in order to • basis for determining for a particular course
create banks of items, each measuring the same or curriculum the specific meaning of broad educa-
educational objective. Benjamin S. Bloom, then tional goals, such as those found in the currently
Associate Director of the Board of Examinations of prevalent national, state, and local standards;
the University of Chicago, initiated the idea, hoping • means for determining the congruence of
that it would reduce the labor of preparing annual educa-tional objectives, activities, and assessments
comprehensive examinations. To aid in his effort, he in a unit, course, or curriculum; and
enlisted a group of measurement specialists from • panorama of the range of educational
across the United States, many of whom repeatedly possibili-ties against which the limited breadth and
faced the same problem. This group met about twice a depth of any particular educational course or
year beginning in 1949 to consider progress, make curricu-lum could be contrasted.
revisions, and plan the next steps. Their final draft
was published in 1956 under the title, Taxonomy of The Original Taxonomy
Educational Objectives: The Classification of Edu-
The original Taxonomy provided carefully
cational Goals. Handbook I: Cognitive Domain
developed definitions for each of the six major cat-
(Bloom, Engelhart, Furst, Hill, & Krathwohl, 1956). 1 egories in the cognitive domain. The categories were
Hereafter, this is referred to as the original Taxono- Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis,
my. The revision of this framework, which is the Synthesis, and Evaluation.3 With the ex-ception of
subject of this issue of Theory Into Practice, was Application, each of these was broken into
developed in much the same manner 45 years later subcategories. The complete structure of the original
(Anderson, Krathwohl, et al., 2001). Hereafter, this is Taxonomy is shown in Table 1.
referred to as the revised Taxonomy.2 The categories were ordered from simple to
complex and from concrete to abstract. Further, it
David R. Krathwohl is Hannah Hammond Professor of was assumed that the original Taxonomy repre-sented
Education Emeritus at Syracuse University. a cumulative hierarchy; that is, mastery of

THEORY INTO PRACTICE, Volume 41, Number 4, Autumn 2002

212Copyright © 2002 College of Education, The Ohio State University

Table 1
 Structure of the Original Taxonomy Krathwohl
An Overview
1.0 Knowledge
1.10 Knowledge of specifics
1.11 Knowledge of terminology across the spectrum of categories. Almost always,
1.12 Knowledge of specific facts these analyses have shown a heavy emphasis on
1.20 Knowledge of ways and means of dealing with
objectives requiring only recognition or recall of
specifics information, objectives that fall in the Knowledge
1.21 Knowledge of conventions category. But, it is objectives that involve the under-
1.22 Knowledge of trends and sequences standing and use of knowledge, those that would be
1.23 Knowledge of classifications and categories classified in the categories from Comprehension to
1.24 Knowledge of criteria Synthesis, that are usually considered the most im-
1.25 Knowledge of methodology portant goals of education. Such analyses, therefore,
1.30 Knowledge of universals and abstractions in a have repeatedly provided a basis for moving curricu-
field la and tests toward objectives that would be classi-
1.31 Knowledge of principles and generaliza- fied in the more complex categories.
tions
1.32 Knowledge of theories and structures From One Dimension to Two Dimensions
2.0 Comprehension Objectives that describe intended learning
2.1 Translation outcomes as the result of instruction are usually
2.2 Interpretation framed in terms of (a) some subject matter content
2.3 Extrapolation and (b) a description of what is to be done with or to
3.0 Application that content. Thus, statements of objectives typically
4.0 Analysis consist of a noun or noun phrase—the subject matter
4.1 Analysis of elements content—and a verb or verb phrase—the cognitive
4.2 Analysis of relationships process(es). Consider, for example, the following
4.3 Analysis of organizational principles objective: The student shall be able to remember the
5.0 Synthesis law of supply and demand in economics. “The
5.1 Production of a unique communication student shall be able to” (or “The learner will,” or
5.2 Production of a plan, or proposed set of operations some other similar phrase) is common to all objec-
5.3 Derivation of a set of abstract relations tives since an objective defines what students are
6.0 Evaluation
expected to learn. Statements of objectives often omit
6.1 Evaluation in terms of internal evidence “The student shall be able to” phrase, speci-fying just
6.2 Judgments in terms of external criteria the unique part (e.g., “Remember the economics law
of supply and demand.”). In this form it is clear that
each simpler category was prerequisite to mastery of the noun phrase is “law of supply and demand” and
the next more complex one. the verb is “remember.”
At the time it was introduced, the term tax- In the original Taxonomy, the Knowledge cate-
onomy was unfamiliar as an education term. Po- gory embodied both noun and verb aspects. The noun or
tential users did not understand what it meant, subject matter aspect was specified in Knowledge’s
therefore, little attention was given to the original extensive subcategories. The verb aspect was includ-ed
Taxonomy at first. But as readers saw its poten-tial, in the definition given to Knowledge in that the student
the framework became widely known and cit-ed, was expected to be able to recall or recog-nize
eventually being translated into 22 languages. knowledge. This brought unidimensionality to the
One of the most frequent uses of the original framework at the cost of a Knowledge category that was
Taxonomy has been to classify curricular objec-tives dual in nature and thus different from the other
and test items in order to show the breadth, or lack of Taxonomic categories. This anomaly was elim-inated in
breadth, of the objectives and items the revised Taxonomy by allowing these two aspects, the
noun and verb, to form separate di-mensions, the noun
providing the basis for the Knowl-edge dimension and
the verb forming the basis for the Cognitive Process
dimension.

213
THEORY INTO PRACTICE / Autumn 2002
Revising Bloom’s Taxonomy
The Knowledge dimension
 Like the original, the knowledge categories of
the revised Taxonomy cut across subject matter lines.
The new Knowledge dimension, however, contains
four instead of three main categories. Three of them Table 2
include the substance of the subcat-egories of Structure of the Knowledge Dimension
Knowledge in the original framework. But they were of the Revised Taxonomy
reorganized to use the terminology, and to recognize A. Factual Knowledge – The basic elements that stu-dents
the distinctions of cognitive psy-chology that must know to be acquainted with a discipline or solve
developed since the original frame-work was devised. problems in it.
A fourth, and new category, Metacognitive Aa. Knowledge of terminology
Knowledge, provides a distinction that was not Ab. Knowledge of specific details and elements
widely recognized at the time the orig-inal scheme B. Conceptual Knowledge – The interrelationships among
was developed. Metacognitive Knowl-edge involves the basic elements within a larger structure that enable
knowledge about cognition in general as well as them to function together.
awareness of and knowledge about one’s own Ba. Knowledge of classifications and categories
cognition (Pintrich, this issue). It is of in-creasing Bb. Knowledge of principles and generalizations
significance as researchers continue to demonstrate Bc. Knowledge of theories, models, and structures
the importance of students being made aware of their C. Procedural Knowledge – How to do something;
metacognitive activity, and then us-ing this meth-ods of inquiry, and criteria for using skills,
knowledge to appropriately adapt the ways in which algorithms,
they think and operate. The four catego-ries with their techniques, and methods.
Ca. Knowledge of subject-specific skills and al-
subcategories are shown in Table 2.
gorithms
Cb. Knowledge of subject-specific techniques and
The Cognitive Process dimension methods
The original number of categories, six, was re- Cc. Knowledge of criteria for determining when to
tained, but with important changes. Three categories use appropriate procedures
were renamed, the order of two was interchanged,
D. Metacognitive Knowledge – Knowledge of
and those category names retained were changed to
cognition in general as well as awareness and
verb form to fit the way they are used in objectives. knowledge of
The verb aspect of the original Knowledge one’s own cognition.
category was kept as the first of the six major cat- Da. Strategic knowledge
egories, but was renamed Remember. Comprehen- Db. Knowledge about cognitive tasks, including
sion was renamed because one criterion for selecting appropriate contextual and conditional
category labels was the use of terms that teachers use knowledge
in talking about their work. Because understand is a Dc. Self-knowledge
commonly used term in objectives, its lack of
inclusion was a frequent criticism of the original Application, Analysis, and Evaluation were re-
Taxonomy. Indeed, the original group con-sidered tained, but in their verb forms as Apply, Analyze, and
using it, but dropped the idea after further Evaluate. Synthesis changed places with Evalu-ation
consideration showed that when teachers say they and was renamed Create. All the original sub-categories
want the student to “really” understand, they mean were replaced with gerunds, and called “cognitive
anything from Comprehension to Synthesis. But, to processes.” With these changes, the cate-gories and
the revising authors there seemed to be popular usage subcategories—cognitive processes—of the Cognitive
in which understand was a widespread syn-onym for Process dimension are shown in Table 3.
comprehending. So, Comprehension, the second of Whereas the six major categories were given
the original categories, was renamed far more attention than the subcategories in the orig-
inal Taxonomy, in the revision, the 19 specific cog-
Understand.4
nitive processes within the six cognitive process
categories receive the major emphasis. Indeed, the
nature of the revision’s six major categories emerg-es
214 most clearly from the descriptions given the spe-cific
cognitive processes. Together, these processes
characterize each category’s breadth and depth.
Like the original Taxonomy, the revision is a
hierarchy in the sense that the six major categories of
the Cognitive Process dimension are believed to
differ in their complexity, with remember being less Krathwohl
complex than understand, which is less com-plex An Overview
than apply, and so on. However, because the revision
gives much greater weight to teacher us-age, the Table 3
requirement of a strict hierarchy has been relaxed to Structure of the Cognitive Process
allow the categories to overlap one an-other. This is Dimension of the Revised Taxonomy
most clearly illustrated in the case of the category
Understand. Because its scope has been considerably 1.0 Remember – Retrieving relevant knowledge from long-
broadened over Comprehend in the original term memory.
1.1 Recognizing
framework, some cognitive processes associated with
1.2 Recalling
Understand (e.g., Explaining) are more cognitively
complex than at least one of the cognitive processes 2.0 Understand – Determining the meaning of instruc-
tional messages, including oral, written, and graphic
associated with Apply (e.g., Executing). If, however,
communication.
one were to locate the “center point” of each of the
2.1 Interpreting
six major categories on a scale of judged complexity, 2.2 Exemplifying
they would likely form a scale from simple to 2.3 Classifying
complex. In this sense, the Cognitive Process 2.4 Summarizing
dimension is a hierarchy, and probably one that 2.5 Inferring
would be supported as well as was the original 2.6 Comparing
Taxonomy in terms of empiri-cal evidence (see 2.7 Explaining
Anderson, Krathwohl, et al., 2001, chap. 16). 3.0 Apply – Carrying out or using a procedure in a given
situation.
3.1 Executing
The Taxonomy Table 3.2 Implementing
In the revised Taxonomy, the fact that any 4.0 Analyze – Breaking material into its constituent parts
objective would be represented in two dimensions and detecting how the parts relate to one another and to
immediately suggested the possibility of construct- an overall structure or purpose.
ing a two-dimensional table, which we termed the 4.1 Differentiating
4.2 Organizing
Taxonomy Table. The Knowledge dimension would
4.3 Attributing
form the vertical axis of the table, whereas the
Cognitive Process dimension would form the hori- 5.0 Evaluate – Making judgments based on criteria and
standards.
zontal axis. The intersections of the knowledge and
5.1 Checking
cognitive process categories would form the cells.
5.2 Critiquing
Consequently, any objective could be classified in the
Taxonomy Table in one or more cells that cor- 6.0 Create – Putting elements together to form a novel,
coherent whole or make an original product.
respond with the intersection of the column(s) ap-
6.1 Generating
propriate for categorizing the verb(s) and the row(s) 6.2 Planning
appropriate for categorizing the noun(s) or noun 6.3 Producing
phrase(s). To see how this placement of objectives is
accomplished, consider the following example academic purposes and situations by writing original
adapted from the State of Minnesota’s Language Arts compositions that analyze patterns and relationships of
ideas, topics, or themes. (State of Minnesota, 1998)
Standards for Grade 12:
A student shall demonstrate the ability to write us-ing We begin by simplifying the standard (i.e., objec-tive)
grammar, language mechanics, and other con-ventions of by ignoring certain parts, particularly restric-tions
standard written English for a variety of such as “using grammar, language mechanics, and
other conventions of standard written English for a
variety of academic purposes and situations.” (Some
of these specify scoring dimensions that, if not done
correctly, would cause the student’s com-position to
be given a lower grade.) Omitting these restrictions
leaves us with the following:

215
THEORY INTO PRACTICE / Autumn 2002
Revising Bloom’s Taxonomy
 Write original compositions that analyze patterns and
relationships of ideas, topics, or themes.
Placement of the objective along the Knowl-
edge dimension requires a consideration of the noun Understand through Create are usually considered
phrase “patterns and relationships of ideas, topics, or the most important outcomes of education, their
themes.” “Patterns and relationships” are associated inclusion, or lack of it, is readily apparent from the
with B. Conceptual Knowledge. So we would classi- Taxonomy Table. Consider this example from one of
fy the noun component as an example of B. Concep- the vignettes in the revised Taxonomy vol-ume in
tual Knowledge. Concerning the placement of the which a teacher, Ms. Gwendolyn Airasian, describes
objective along the Cognitive Process dimension, we a classroom unit in which she integrates Pre-
note there are two verbs: write and analyze. Writ-ing Revolutionary War colonial history with a per-suasive
compositions calls for Producing, and, as such, writing assignment. Ms. Airasian lists four specific
would be classified as an example of 6. Create. objectives. She wants her students to:
Analyze, of course, would be 4. Analyze. Since both
categories of cognitive processes are likely to be 1. Remember the specific parts of the
involved (with students being expected to ana-lyze Parliamentary Acts (e.g., the Sugar, Stamp, and
before they create), we would place this ob-jective in Townshend Acts);
two cells of the Taxonomy Table: B4, Analyze 2. Explain the consequences of the
Conceptual Knowledge, and B6, Create [based on] Parliamentary Acts for different colonial groups;
Conceptual Knowledge (see Figure 1). We use the 3. Choose a colonial character or group and
bracketed [based on] to indicate that the creation write a persuasive editorial stating his/her/its
itself isn’t conceptual knowledge; rath-er, the creation position on the Acts (the editorial must include at
is primarily based on, in this case, conceptual least one supporting reason not specifically taught
knowledge. or covered in the class); and
4. Self- and peer edit the editorial.
By using the Taxonomy Table, an analysis of
the objectives of a unit or course provides, among Categorizing the first objective, 1. Remember
other things, an indication of the extent to which is clearly the cognitive process, and “specific parts of
more complex kinds of knowledge and cog-nitive the Parliamentary Acts” is Ab. Knowledge of spe-
processes are involved. Since objectives from cific details or elements, a subcategory of A. Factu-
al Knowledge. So this objective is placed in cell A1.5
“Explain,” the verb in the second objective, is the
seventh cognitive process, 2.7 Explaining,

The Cognitive Process Dimension

The Knowledge 1. Remember 2. Understand 3. Apply
Dimension

A. Factual
Knowledge

B. Conceptual
Knowledge

C. Proce
dural
Knowledge

D. Metacog
nitive
Knowledge
Figure 1. The placement in the Taxonomy Table of the State of Minnesota’s Language Arts Standard for Grade
12.

216
 Krathwohl
An Overview

under 2. Understand. Since the student is asked to more important and long-lasting fruits of educa-tion
explain the “consequences of the Parliamentary —the more complex ones.
Acts,” one can infer that “consequences” refers to In addition to showing what was included, the
generalized statements about the Acts’ aftereffects Taxonomy Table also suggests what might have been
and is closest to Bc. Knowledge of theories, models, but wasn’t. Thus, in Figure 2, the two blank bottom
and structures. The type of knowledge, then, would rows raise questions about whether there might have
be B. Conceptual Knowledge. This objective would been procedural or metacognitive knowledge
be classified in cell B2. objectives that could have been includ-ed. For
The key verb in the third objective is “write.” example, are there procedures to follow in editing
Like the classification of the State of Minnesota’s that the teacher could explicitly teach the students?
standard discussed above, writing is 6.3 Produc-ing, Alternatively, is knowledge of the kinds of errors
a process within 6. Create. To describe “his/ her/its common in one’s own writing and preferred ways of
position on the Acts” would require some correcting them an important metacognitive outcome
combination of A. Factual Knowledge and B. Con- of self-editing that could have been em-phasized?
ceptual Knowledge, so this objective would be clas- The panorama of possibilities presented by the
sified in two cells: A6 and B6. Finally, the fourth Taxonomy Table causes one to look at blank areas
objective involves the verbs “self-edit” and “peer and reflect on missed teaching opportunities.
edit.” Editing is a type of evaluation, so the process The Taxonomy Table can also be used to clas-
involved is 5. Evaluate. The process of evaluation sify the instructional and learning activities used to
will involve criteria, which are classified as B. achieve the objectives, as well as the assess-ments
Conceptual Knowledge, so the fourth objective employed to determine how well the objec-tives were
would fall in cell B5. The completed Taxonomy mastered by the students. The use of the Taxonomy
Table for this unit’s objectives is shown in Figure 2. Table for these purposes is described and illustrated
From the table, one can quickly visually de- in the six vignettes contained in the revised
termine the extent to which the more complex cat- Taxonomy volume (Anderson, Krathwohl, et al.,
egories are represented. Ms. Airasian’s unit is quite 2001, chaps. 8-13). In the last two articles of this
good in this respect. Only one objective deals with issue, Airasian discusses assessment in great-er
the Remember category; the others involve cogni- detail, and Anderson describes and illustrates
tive processes that are generally recognized as the alignment.

The Cognitive Process Dimension

The Knowledge
Dimension

A. Factual
Knowledge

B. Conceptual
Knowledge

C. Proce
dural
Knowledge

D. Metacog
nitive
Knowledge
Figure 2. The classification in a Taxonomy Table of the four objectives of Ms. Airasian’s unit integrat-ing Pre-
Revolutionary War colonial history with a persuasive writing assignment.

217
THEORY INTO PRACTICE / Autumn 2002
Revising Bloom’s Taxonomy

Conclusion 2. The revised Taxonomy is published both in a

hard-cover complete edition and a paperback
The Taxonomy of Educational Objectives is a abridgment, which omits Chapters 15, The Taxonomy in
scheme for classifying educational goals, objec-tives, Rela-tion to Alternative Frameworks; 16, Empirical
and, most recently, standards. It provides an Stud-ies of the Structure of the Taxonomy; 17, Unsolved
organizational structure that gives a commonly Problems; and Appendix C, Data Used in the Meta-
understood meaning to objectives classified in one of Analysis in Chapter 15.
3. Terms appearing in the original Taxonomy appear
its categories, thereby enhancing communica-tion. in italics with initial caps; terms in the revised Tax-
The original Taxonomy consisted of six cate-gories, onomy add boldface to these specifications.
nearly all with subcategories. They were arranged in 4. Problem solving and critical thinking were two
a cumulative hierarchical framework; achievement of oth-er terms commonly used by teachers that were also
the next more complex skill or abil-ity required considered for inclusion in the revision. But unlike
understand, there seemed to be no popular usage that
achievement of the prior one. The orig-inal
could be matched to a single category. There-fore, to be
Taxonomy volume emphasized the assessment of categorized in the Taxonomy, one must determine the
learning with many examples of test items (large-ly intended specific meaning of prob-lem solving and
multiple choice) provided for each category. critical thinking from the context in which they are
Our revision of the original Taxonomy is a two- being used.
5. One can use the subcategories to designate the
dimensional framework: Knowledge and Cog-nitive rows and columns; however, for the sake of simplicity,
Processes. The former most resembles the the examples make use of only the major categories.
subcategories of the original Knowledge category.
The latter resembles the six categories of the orig-inal References
Taxonomy with the Knowledge category named Anderson, L.W. (Ed.), Krathwohl, D.R. (Ed.), Airasian,
Remember, the Comprehension category named P.W., Cruikshank, K.A., Mayer, R.E., Pintrich, P.R.,
Understand, Synthesis renamed Create and made the Raths, J., & Wittrock, M.C. (2001). A taxonomy for
top category, and the remaining categories changed to learning, teaching, and assessing: A revision of
Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives (Com-
their verb forms: Apply, Analyze, and Evaluate. They plete edition). New York: Longman.
are arranged in a hierarchical struc-ture, but not as Bloom, B.S. (Ed.), Engelhart, M.D., Furst, E.J., Hill, W.H.,
rigidly as in the original Taxonomy. & Krathwohl, D.R. (1956). Taxonomy of educational
In combination, the Knowledge and Cognitive objectives: The classification of edu-cational goals.
Handbook 1: Cognitive domain. New York: David
Process dimensions form a very useful table, the Tax-
McKay.
onomy Table. Using the Table to classify objectives, Dave, R.H. (1970). Psychomotor levels. In R.J. Arm-strong
activities, and assessments provides a clear, concise, (Ed.), Developing and writing educational objectives
visual representation of a particular course or unit. (pp. 33-34). Tucson AZ: Educational Innovators Press.
Once completed, the entries in the Taxonomy Ta-ble
can be used to examine relative emphasis, cur- Harrow, A.J. (1972). A taxonomy of the psychomotor
domain: A guide for developing behavioral objec-
riculum alignment, and missed educational tives. New York: David McKay.
opportunities. Based on this examination, teachers Krathwohl, D.R., Bloom, B.S., & Masia, B.B. (1964).
can decide where and how to improve the plan-ning Taxonomy of educational objectives: The classifi-
of curriculum and the delivery of instruction. cation of educational goals. Handbook II: The af-
fective domain. New York: David McKay.
Simpson, B.J. (1966). The classification of educational
Notes objectives: Psychomotor domain. Illinois Journal of
1. The Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: Home Economics, 10(4), 110-144.
Handbook II, The Affective Domain was published later State of Minnesota. (1998). State educational standards
(Krath-wohl, Bloom, & Masia, 1964). A taxonomy for coupled to lesson plans and resources: Language Arts,
the psychomotor domain was never published by the High standards (1998): Grade 12: Writing-Unit: De-
originating group, but some were published by Simp- scription, Academic. Retrieved April 20, 2001, from
son (1966), Dave (1970), and Harrow (1972). http://www.statestandards.com/showstate.asp?st=mn.

218