Domains of Talent

Domains of talent refers to the specific areas in which a person may excel. Benjamin Bloom described talent as “an unusually high level of demonstrated ability, achievement or skill in some special field of study or interest” (p. 5). In Bloom's early work at the University of Chicago, researchers attempted to investigate distinct domains of talent in order to identify critical factors in the development of talent. The research team selected only four of literally hundreds of domains to study: athletic/psychomotor; aesthetic/musical/artistic; cognitive/intellectual; and interpersonal. Bloom's team selected these four domains because of the interrelationship between and among them as well as the spectrum of domains, and attempted to identify the ways in which talent develops in a domain. Early in the study the team ...