Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives

Bloom's Taxonomy is an educational classic. Its formal title is Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. The Classification of Educational Goals. Handbook I: Cognitive Domain. A committee of college and university examiners wrote the book, which was edited by Benjamin S. Bloom and published in 1956. Bloom's Taxonomy offered a classification system for educational goals that could be used in the construction of test items and in the formulation of instructional objectives.

The volume presents six categories of educational objectives:

• 1.
  Knowledge
• 2.
  Comprehension
• 3.
  Application
• 4.
  Analysis
• 5.
  Synthesis
• 6.
  Evaluation

Bloom presents sample test items that assess instructional objectives associated with each category of educational objectives along with specific examples of instructional objectives associated with each of the six categories of cognitive objectives.

To Bloom, knowledge is defined as ‘those behaviors and test situations, ...