Across the world, right now, Bloom’s taxonomy is framing assessment for millions of learners in classrooms, exam halls and lecture theatres. So why not use it in yours?

Using Bloom’s Taxonomy to Frame Assessments

I want to share a few things about how you can use Bloom’s Taxonomy to frame assessments and why it works so effectively.

(The caveat here is that Bloom’s Taxonomy is a taxonomy of the cognitive domain. If you are teaching a practical subject, maths or modern foreign languages, things are different. Bloom’s may fit, it may fit in part, or it may not fit at all.)

Assessment aims at establishing the present status of a learner’s knowledge and understanding.

It does this by eliciting information from the learner and then comparing this information to a set of criteria.

Assessment can be informal.

Like when we ask a question, get a response, and compare this to what we know and might expect from a learner at this point in time.

Assessment is also formal.

Like when we ask learners to sit down and take a test, which we then mark, comparing their answers to a set of criteria codified in the form of a mark-scheme.

When constructing a formal assessment for your learners – whether a test or a task that asks them to create a piece of work – you can use Bloom’s Taxonomy to frame your efforts.

And make your life easier in the process.

Any assessment you construct will have as its aim the elicitation of information regarding learner knowledge and understanding.

An effective assessment will give learners the opportunity to demonstrate the extent of what they know and what they can do.

A circumscribed assessment is sometimes necessary to check recall or comprehension but, in general, we want to create opportunities through which understanding can be fully, and therefore accurately, gauged.

To this end, Bloom’s Taxonomy can be employed.

Constructing Assessments

We can construct tests that ask learners a series of questions about a particular topic, with these questions becoming increasingly demanding as they move up the taxonomy.

We can start at the bottom, and make our way to the top, through the levels:

Knowledge
Comprehension
Application
Analysis
Synthesis
Evaluation

Many formal assessments written by exam boards are designed in precisely this way.

Earlier questions test knowledge and comprehension while later ones gradually move up the levels, often combining two or more assessment objectives at the same time.

When it comes to designing tasks that ask learners to create products you will then mark and assess, the same points hold.

First, we want to give learners the opportunity to showcase their knowledge and understanding – we want to try to avoid too much circumscription because this can limit the extent of the information we are able to elicit, diminishing the efficacy of any judgements we subsequently make.

Two highly effective applications of the taxonomy suggest themselves.

First, we can create a series of tasks based on sequential levels of the taxonomy (or various combinations thereof).

Such an assessment is challenging at the same time as it gives learners scope in which to demonstrate the extent of their knowledge and the depth of their understanding.

Second, we can give learners a selection of success criteria based on the taxonomy.

These guide them in the direction we want them to take their work.

Some learners will be able to fulfil all the criteria, others won’t.

Either way, we will be in a position to accurately assess where all learners are at and the current level of their knowledge and understanding.

This is because the success criteria will have set a wide scope for the task, giving us the chance to elicit the most information possible about what learners know and don’t know as well as what they can and can’t do.

This again demonstrates why the taxonomy works, and why it is such an effective tool to use when planning assessments.

(And why it saves time and makes life easier – because it does a lot of the work for us.)

Its inherently progressive nature – the fact that it represents the constituents of mastery learning and, in so doing, sets out a framework of increasing cognitive complexity – means that we can always use it to contrive challenging assessments that make a range of demands on learner knowledge and understanding.

This results in the elicitation of the information we need to accurately judge the extent of learners’ learning as well as their relative proficiency in using this.

As a reminder (and you can also find these elsewhere on the site), here are the six levels of the taxonomy, accompanied by a set of keywords that can help you when planning assessments.

Bloom’s Taxonomy Keywords

Knowledge Keywords:

Arrange, Define, Describe, List, Match, Memorise, Name, Order, Quote, Recognise, Recall, Repeat, Reproduce, Restate, Retain.

Comprehension Keywords:

Characterise, Classify, Complete, Describe, Discuss, Establish, Explain, Express, Identify, Illustrate, Recognise, Report, Relate, Sort, Translate.

Application Keywords:

Apply, Calculate, Choose, Demonstrate, Dramatize, Employ, Implement, Interpret, Operate, Perform, Practise, Role-Play, Sketch, Solve, Suggest.

Analysis Keywords:

Analyse, Appraise, Categorize, Compare, Contrast, Differentiate, Discriminate, Distinguish, Examine, Experiment, Explore, Investigate, Question, Research, Test.

Synthesis Keywords:

Combine, Compose, Construct, Create, Devise, Design, Formulate, Hypothesise, Integrate, Merge, Organise, Plan, Propose, Synthesise, Unite.

Evaluation Keywords:

Appraise, Argue, Assess, Critique, Defend, Evaluate, Examine, Grade, Inspect, Judge, Justify, Rank, Rate, Review, Value.