Bloom’s taxonomy
one of the first systematic classifications of the three domains—cognitive, affective, and psychomotor—that students use in attaining educational goals. Originally proposed in 1956, the taxonomy states that each domain is divided into levels from least to most complex, representing a cumulative hierarchy. The cognitive domain encompasses intellectual capacity. The remembering level is considered to be the lowest taxonomic category in this domain, since information can be recalled with a minimum of understanding. The highest level, creating, represents the cumulative contributions of the remembering level plus four others arranged in order of cognitive complexity: understanding, applying, analyzing, and evaluating. The affective domain encompasses emotional capacity, feelings, values, and attitudes and consists of five levels: receiving, responding, valuing, organizing, and characterizing. The psychomotor domain includes movement,
spatial relationships, and use of motor skills. Its hierarchy was not described in the original taxonomy, but a number of different hierarchies were proposed in the 1970s, generally organized around the degree of learned capacity with reflex, imitation, and perception at the lowest level and the creation or coordination of highly skilled movements at the highest level. Also called taxonomy of educational objectives. [proposed by a committee of college examiners chaired by U.S. educator Benjamin S. Bloom (1913–1999)]