Bloom’s Taxonomy of the Cognitive Domain
Learning is a lifelong journey whether a person is enrolled in formal schooling or simply the process of trail and error one goes through during life. In 1956 Benjamin Bloom, an Educational Psychologist headed a group that evaluated the cycle of learning. In his study he found six categories or levels of understanding. The levels of Bloom’s taxonomy include, , , , , and . While this classification has been used extensively in educational settings the benefits of Bloom’s taxonomy are useful to varied areas of life including the workplace. Managers can use Bloom’s taxonomy to identify where their own understanding of a subject and more importantly what level of understanding their own staff is at on a particular subject. The benefit for the informed manager is that he or she can be continually developing and measuring the results of training efforts for their staff. Using Bloom’s Taxonomy of the Cognitive Domain can help develop a learning organization when used by its leaders in evaluations.
The first step in understanding a subject for the learner is knowledge. Bloom defined the knowledge as a level in which one has memorized the information and can list or recite the information back if asked. A person who has knowledge of a subject can not explain the subject or expound beyond a simple description. An example of an employee with knowledge in the workplace would be a new hire that can list what and where to retrieve reports but could not explain why or what the data represents. Obviously the manager coaching this employee to develop them would want to coach to the next level of understanding which is comprehension.
In the comprehension level a person has a more advanced knowledge of the subject. A person who comprehends can now not only list and repeat a subject but can review and translate the information. Given the example above the new would now be able to take the reports and review them for management. The new employee has now advanced and could now report back to his or her manager what the information in the reports say about the business. Although this is a large step in the understanding the comprehension level is still limited in that the person who comprehends can not interpret or solve. These additional abilities come in the next level of Bloom’s Taxonomy which is application.
Once a person reaches the level of application they now have a firm foundation of the subject. In the business world this would be the level of understanding in which the person begins to contribute back to the organization. In application one can choose, operate, and apply the knowledge.
Using the example of the new employee’s progress of learning this is the point at which they could respond and discuss the issues represented in the reports and graphs. In the application level of understanding the new employee would be able to apply the information to the daily activities in the workplace. In the workplace the application stage is the level at which one begins to contribute to the group. In ones personal life or in and educational setting this is the level at which the foundation is fully developed and greater comprehension can develop to the next level which is analysis.
In the analysis stage a person is able to not only know the information but to begin testing, appraising, calculating and analyzing from various angles. At this stage a person begins to enter the higher levels of understanding. The recently hired employee now walks into the monthly meeting over the graphs and data. In the meetings they are able to demonstrate why trends are happening and validating the information through various measurements and explanations. The growth between the level of application and analysis becomes apparent in the given example and further explains why the first three levels are foundation levels while the final three levels demonstrate tremendous growth. The next step in this tremendous growth is the level Bloom calls synthesis.
Synthesis is the level in which a person now understands a subject to the point at which one can compose, arrange and formulate the information in various manners that add additional information and expound the subject. The meetings have now become extremely productive for our new employee. They now can take the reports and graphs and compose detailed reports about the information and the total impact of the measurements throughout the organization. The manager of this employee has effectively developed this employee to be a valuable asset to the company but true mastery of a subject does not come until they reach the level Bloom calls evaluation.
In the evaluation stage a person can judge, assess, reconfigure and argue the subject. The person who reaches the level of evaluation would be considered to have mastered the subject matter. The once new employee now is the meeting host. They can now manipulate and combine the data with other data or ideas. They can now interject as to whether the information is valid or how it can be improved. Once an employee or person reaches this level of understanding they are now adding to human knowledge and fully understand the subject matter.
Research over the last 40 years has confirmed the validity of Bloom’s taxonomy as a hierarchy. The benefit for every individual is to examine ones own understanding of a given subject to see if they can demonstrate the characteristics of each level to evaluate where they rest in this hierarchy. Once a person knows what they know they can look to what they need to know about a subject.
In the workplace a manager can use the characteristics of each level to evaluate at what level their team understands a given subject. Knowing what level the audience understands a subject allows the manager to coach to the next level. Without using Bloom’s hierarchy a manager could easily teach to a level several steps up and slow the growth and development of their team. The goal of learning is to reach the level in which one is adding new, creative thoughts and insight into a subject matter. This can only be achieved at the highest level of understanding in Bloom’s taxonomy. To reach this level one must know at which level they currently reside and what knowledge they need to obtain. Using Bloom’s taxonomy can assist the learning person whether in an educational, personal or business environment to become a contributor to the collective knowledge of understanding.
