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Educational Objectives
The Taxonomy identifies three domains of learning: cognitive, affective, and psychomotor. The cognitive domain describes factual knowledge and the intellectual skills to understand and use that knowledge (from recalling facts, to problem-solving, to evaluation of ideas). The affective domain describes attitudes, values, and emotions (from paying attention, to expressed belief, to internalized belief). The psychomotor domain describes physical movement (from computer keyboarding to interpretive dance).
Bloom and Krathwohl published complete taxonomies of the cognitive and affective domains, and several others (R. H. Dave in 1970, D. E. Simpson in 1972, and A. Harrow in 1972) published taxonomies of the psychomotor domain. While affective (attitude) and psychomotor (movement) objectives are important to any adult education program (and key to some), the majority of objectives expected in course descriptions are from the cognitive domain. We'll save the affective and psychomotor domains for future articles, and will start here with the most commonly found academic objectives, which are the cognitive domain.
The cognitive domain consists of six levels:
Knowledge: Recall of data. |
Examples: Recite a policy. Quote prices from memory to a customer. Knows the safety rules.
Key Words: defines, describes, identifies, knows, labels, lists, matches, names, outlines, recalls, recognizes, reproduces, selects, states. |
| Comprehension: Understand the meaning, translation, interpolation, and interpretation of instructions and problems. State a problem in one's own words. |
Examples: Rewrites the principles of test writing. Explain in one's own words the steps for performing a complex task. Translates an equation into a computer spreadsheet.
Key words: comprehends, converts, defends, distinguishes, estimates, explains, extends, generalizes, gives examples, infers, interprets, paraphrases, predicts, rewrites, summarizes, translates. |
Application: Use a concept in a new situation or unprompted use of an abstraction. Applies what was learned in the classroom into novel situations in the workplace. |
Examples: Use a manual to calculate an employee's vacation time. Apply laws of statistics to evaluate the reliability of a written test.
Key Words: applies, changes, computes, constructs, demonstrates, discovers, manipulates, modifies, operates, predicts, prepares, produces, relates, shows, solves, uses. |
Analysis: Separates material or concepts into component parts so that its organizational structure may be understood. Distinguishes between facts and inferences. |
Examples: Troubleshoot a piece of equipment by using logical deduction. Recognize logical fallacies in reasoning. Gathers information from a department and selects the required tasks for training.
Keywords: analyzes, breaks down, compares, contrasts, diagrams, deconstructs, differentiates, discriminates, distinguishes, identifies, illustrates, infers, outlines, relates, selects, separates. |
Synthesis: Builds a structure or pattern from diverse elements. Put parts together to form a whole, with emphasis on creating a new meaning or structure. |
Examples: Write a company operations or process manual. Design a machine to perform a specific task. Integrates training from several sources to solve a problem. Revises and process to improve the outcome.
Keywords: categorizes, combines, compiles, composes, creates, devises, designs, explains, generates, modifies, organizes, plans, rearranges, reconstructs, relates, reorganizes, revises, rewrites, summarizes, tells, writes. |
Evaluation: Make judgments about the value of ideas or materials. |
Examples: Select the most effective solution. Hire the most qualified candidate. Explain and justify a new budget.
Keywords: appraises, compares, concludes, contrasts, criticizes, critiques, defends, describes, discriminates, evaluates, explains, interprets, justifies, relates, summarizes, supports. |
1. Knowledge provides the foundation of vocabulary, concepts, context, and skills to deal with the subject matter. Every "introduction" course must provide this basic information, and every student must master it in order to deal responsibly with the topic.
2. Comprehension makes the fact-knowledge meaningful. By interpreting, generalizing, translating, and summarizing the facts, the student learns to work with the information and to make it his/her own.
3. Application enables the student to put the knowledge and skills into action. By using a rule or a principle in a new situation, the student starts to make the foundation learning "useful" in additional situations.
4. Analysis advances student understanding and skill by enabling him/her to parse the material by its organization or structure into its component parts. This organization differs by subject matter - it can be logical, can reflect a physical description, or can form a tree-structure of subcategories like the Taxonomy of Educational Objectives itself. Analysis is the level that demonstrates what is often called understanding of the subject matter.
5. Synthesis is the productive, creative, or problem-solving level of proficiency. At this level, the student can make something new (like a report, a model, or a presentation) based on the knowledge and understanding previously acquired. This is the level of performance that industry requires to participate in process improvement and quality management.
6. Evaluation demonstrates mastery by enabling the student to evaluate competing solutions to a problem, to make value judgments about work products, or to justify a business decision. In the arts, the critic holds a special position because responsible criticism requires complete and mature understanding of the entire endeavor. The difference between a well-founded evaluation and an idle opinion is the foundation of the knowledge, skills, understanding, and experience gained in the other five levels.
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