Revised Bloom's Taxonomy

REVISED BLOOM’S TAXONOMY AND THE DIFFERENT LEVELS OF QUESTIONS

Aims and Objectives of Education

Acquiring the capacities of understanding, appreciation and expression through word and act, are the fundamental aims of education.  It should not just follow a narrow aim of preparing individuals for livelihood.  The goal of classroom questioning is not to determine whether students have learned something but rather to guide students to help them learn necessary information and material. Questions should be used to teach students rather than to just test students.

Teachers spend enough share of classroom time testing students through questions. Most of the questions are based on memory. These questions though important to assess the student, are not enough to evaluate the learning levels. These also lack the thrust to make a student appreciate importance of lifelong learning activity.

  The assessment questions based on revised Bloom’s taxonomy makes a teacher assess the student on multiple learning outcomes. These outcomes are aligned to local, and global standards and objectives.  Development of lesson plan and assessment questions that integrate with blooms taxonomy goes hand in hand. The teacher develops lessons such that each level on learning is given its due. 

 Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy (RBT) names six major categories to verb form instead of noun form in earlier blooms taxonomy. It reflects different form of thinking process in verbs. These verbs are means to qualitatively evaluate different kind of thinking. It has helped organize the thinking skills into six levels. The most basic is based on ability to recall and the most advanced is based on ability to create.   

Fig. Six levels of RBT

Level 6 - Creating: Generating new ideas, products, or ways of viewing things, designing, constructing, planning, producing, inventing.

Level 5 - Evaluating: Justifying a decision or course of action, checking, hypothesizing, critiquing, experimenting, judging.

Level 4 - Analyzing: Breaking the information in parts to explore understanding and relationships, comparing, organizing, deconstructing, interrogating, finding.

Level 3 - Applying: Using the information in another familiar situation, implementing, carrying out, using, executing.

Level 2 - Understanding: Explaining ideas, interpreting, summarizing, classifying, explaining.

Level 1- Remembering: Recalling information. describing, naming, finding, listing, recognizing

RBT provides a way to organize thinking skills into six levels, from the most basic to the more complex levels of thinking. Level 5 and 6 are at high order of thinking.

Table below shows the action verbs categorized as per the knowledge dimension and cognitive process dimension.

Table1. Action verbs in revised Bloom's taxonomy

Cognitive process dimension	Knowledge dimension
	Factual	Conceptual	Procedural	Meta-cognitive
Level-6 Create	Generate	Assemble	Design	Create
	Put or reorganize elements to form meaningful/new /alternate structure (• Adapt • Build • Change • Choose • Combine • Compile • Compose • Construct • Create • Delete • Design • Develop • Discuss • Elaborate • Estimate • Formulate • Happen • Imagine • Improve • Invent • Make up • Maximize • Minimize • Modify • Original • Originate • Plan • Predict • Propose • Solution • Solve • Suppose • Test • Theory)
Level-5 Evaluate	Check	Determine	Judge	Reflect
	Make judgement based on standards (• Agree • Appraise • Assess • Award • Choose • Compare • Conclude • Criteria • Criticize • Decide • Deduct • Defend • Determine • Disprove • Estimate • Evaluate • Explain • Importance • Influence • Interpret • Judge • Justify • Mark • Measure • Opinion • Perceive • Prioritize • Prove • Rate • Recommend • Rule on • Select • Support • Value)
Level-4 Analyze	Select	Differentiate	Integrate	Deconstruct
	Break the system in to constituent parts and determine their relation (• Analyze • Assume • Categorize • Classify • Compare • Conclusion • Contrast • Discover • Dissect • Distinguish • Divide • Examine • Function • Inference • Inspect • List • Motive • Relationships • Simplify • Survey • Take part in • Test for • Theme)
Level -3 Apply	Respond	Provide	Carry out	Use
	Use the procedure in given situation (• Apply • Build • Choose • Construct • Develop • Experiment with • Identify • Interview • Make use of • Model • Organize • Plan • Select • Solve • Utilize)
Level-2 Understand	Summarize	Classify	Clarify	Predict
	Construct meaning from given information (Classify • Compare • Contrast • Demonstrate • Explain • Extend • Illustrate • Infer • Interpret • Outline • Relate • Rephrase • Show • Summarize • Translate)
Level-1 Remember	List	Recognize	Recall	Identify
	Retrieve knowledge from long term memory (Choose • Define • Find • How • Label • List • Match • Name • Omit • Recall • Relate • Select • Show • Spell • Tell • What • When • Where • Which • Who • Why)